Recently, a reference was made on another RyPN thread to a couple of photos on the Lake States Railway Historical Association photo archives. I was fascinated by their website, so looked some of the shots over and actually found one of the ICRR that I am eventually going to purchase. But one particular photograph really caught my eye. One of the LSRHA collections features photos taken, or collected, by a gentleman named Gilford Heath. One of his photos shows a Chicago & North Western Class D 4-4-2 stating it was a steam locomotive at the museum in St. Louis, MO. Obviously the photo does not show the locomotive at the museum but instead, in transit, sandwiched between a hopper car and a single dome tank car. Maybe in St. Louis, but perhaps elsewhere. There is no date on the photo. My first reaction was "cool, the Atlantic before it was put on display at the museum". But wait! Isn't the C&NW Class D at NMoT actually number 1015? And this photo clearly shows the engine as 1017. What's going on? I believe that the North Western 4-4-2 was the first steam locomotive in the collection, and was actually purchased from the railroad in 1946 by a gentleman named John Russell Smith who then turned around and donated it to the museum in 1948. If this really is the 4-4-2 that's at the museum, is the 1015 really the 1017? Why renumber the engine? There has been precedence for doing this of course; NKP Berkshire #767 was really 765; Rock Island 4-6-2 886 is really number 887, Canadian National 4-6-4 #5700 is really a sister, C&O Northern #614 was in service for a while as number 611 and originally saved with that number. And there have been others. But why do that to this C&NW Atlantic? What made the 1015 important? There may be other logical explanations of course. Maybe the 1017 in the photo is not on the way to preservation, but to scrap. But if that's the case, why leave everything on the locomotive? Except for the classification lights, everything seems to still be there and although the watermark used by the LSRHA kind of hides it, the main road does seem to be off. And usually in the days of the 4-4-2's being sent to the scrapper, they usually travelled in "a pack" of other steamers, not separately like this. And of course, the photo might just be mislabeled but why would Mr. Heath, or someone else, do that? BTW, if you might want to check out the photo, try:

http://lsrha.org/default.php?page=0

Go down under the photo of the gents checking their collection to Lake States Photo Archive where you will find the collection of Gilford E. Heath. The shot of C&NW #1017 is one of the first shown in the Chicago & North Western section.

Anyway, just a bit of a mystery for a Saturday night waiting for the 'big storm" to hit.


Les

This is an interesting collection of photos.
re: the photo in question, are the rods on top of the tender? If so, that indicates to me that is is destined for preservation. And, note that while the logo on the tender is completely worn off, the lettering on the cab appears to be fresh - also an indication it was destined for preservation.

I don't think this photo was taken in St. Louis - somewhere in Iowa or near Chicago is a better guess. Most of the photos on the rest of this page say in the captions the photos were taken in Madison, WI - but these don't appear to be in Madison to me - someone more familiar with the area could confirm.

ctjacks -

I think you are right; that may be one of the main rods back on the deck of the tender. Nice catch! As for location, the C&NW DID have a line that made it down into the St. Louis area, so it is a possibility. The outline of the railroads herald can still be seen on the tender, but badly faded. Wonder if anyone has a list as to when the different class D's were withdrawn from service? The railroad had quite a few of these high-drivered 4-4-2's and by the 1940's, with diesel deliveries and passenger train removals, they had to be having their ranks thinned drastically. Good thing Mr. Smith purchased one, whichever one it was!

Les