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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:29 pm 
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A very sharp forum member alerted me to this video and at the 23 minute 15 second mark is about a 5-second glimpse of a 65 ton Whitcomb pulling a train as filmed by a passenger on the train in what appears to be WW II damaged Europe. I don't know if it is France or Germany - those being my two guesses. I would also guess it to be during the occupation after the war. I see no security - i.e. armed soldiers guarding trains and I do see what appears to be civillian refugees traveling on rail cars which I can't imagine would have been permitted during the war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYxgqHsoBak

If anyone can identify the location please help.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:13 pm 
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At 21:38 there is a station sign (in old-fashioned German type), Lambrecht Pfalz, which is in the German state of the Palatinate (Pfalz) just west of Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Neustadt. Here you can see an aerial photo of the station there, with the railway running by:

http://www.maplandia.com/germany/rheinland-pfalz/rheinhessen-pfalz/bad-durkheim/lambrecht/

The locomotive at 22:14 certainly looks like a German locomotive. As for the Whitcomb-hauled train, the surrounding destruction (large river bridges, etc.) is probably typical of what the Allies inflicted on the Rhine region. So I am pretty sure the European parts of the film are from Germany.

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:16 pm 
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rlsteam wrote:
At 21:38 there is a station sign (in old-fashioned German type), Lambrecht Pfalz, which is in the German state of the Palatinate (Pfalz) just west of Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Neustadt. Here you can see an aerial photo of the station there, with the railway running by:

http://www.maplandia.com/germany/rheinland-pfalz/rheinhessen-pfalz/bad-durkheim/lambrecht/

The locomotive at 22:14 certainly looks like a German locomotive. As for the Whitcomb-hauled train, the surrounding destruction (large river bridges, etc.) is probably typical of what the Allies inflicted on the Rhine region. So I am pretty sure the European parts of the film are from Germany.

I'll see if I can find any German WW II vintage photos of damaged bridges on the Rhine. Thanks for your observations.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:09 am 
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Just received this unpublished photo today. It appears to be of the 90 ton Whitcomb locomotives that were sold to the Milwaukee Railroad in 1929. The background I recognize as the east side of Rochelle.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:52 pm 

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Steve -

What a difference the years make! There are a number of railroad museums (mine included) that work to build up a "vintage freight car collection". Here in your photo, it looks like Whitcomb wanted to do a publicity photo and probably just went out and "borrowed" some cars from its yard, or the local railroad. Vintage freight train indeed!

Thanks for posting this shot.

Les


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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 11:18 pm 
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Les Beckman wrote:
Steve -

What a difference the years make! There are a number of railroad museums (mine included) that work to build up a "vintage freight car collection". Here in your photo, it looks like Whitcomb wanted to do a publicity photo and probably just went out and "borrowed" some cars from its yard, or the local railroad. Vintage freight train indeed!

Thanks for posting this shot.

Les

LOL, I didn't even pay attention to what the Whitcomb was pulling. Too bad the angle wasn't better to show more of the cars. You are welcome and a thank you to Roberts Armory who sent this to me. I've been invited to do another Whitcomb display this Memorial Day at his fine private museum which is open to the public on a couple days in the year.

Image

http://www.robertsarmory.com/

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:39 am 
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http://books.google.com/books?id=R9rNAA ... rk&f=false

A fascinating history I never knew before.

Quote:
G. P. Scharl Breaks Records Using Industrial Haulage System.

G. P. Scharl, of Muskegon, Mich., has been widely advertised by almost every manufacturer who has furnished him with equipment because of the great amount of work he has done within a season. He used a 32-E paver which had to be propelled by means of a special crane. This same crane lifted batch boxes and discharged them into the paver and moved the paver whenever necessary The maximum grade on his job was
2%. The road itself was 18 ft wide, 7 ins. thick at the edges, and 8 ins. thick in the center, with 1-in. crown. His mix was 1:1-1/2:3.

Mr Scharl set the plant up in the middle of the job, put his own spur track on the Grand Trunk railroad and accommodated 42 freight cars. Everything was shipped in railroad cars. Two 1-yd. P & H clamshell cranes, gasoline driven, were used for unloading the material. The batch box charging tunnel was 300 ft. long. Under the spur track Mr. Scharl built a receiving bin to permit unloading of hopper bottom gondolas, with a bucket elevator to the storage bin. This bin was constructed in the form of a tunnel with 48 chutes for loading the sand and gravel into the batch boxes. Each batch contained 10 sacks of cement, 15 cu. ft. of sand, and 30 cu. ft. of gravel, making a total of 55 cu. ft. of aggregate for each charge.

In all there were 250 batch box cars, eight Whitcomb gasoline locomotives and 11 miles of track. The maximum train contained 42 cars. The water supply came from a creek, through 2 1/2-in. pipe line. Grading was done by means of a 20 ton tractor with a heavy duty grader attached. The fine grading was done by means of a home-made special grader. For shouldering Mr. Scharl used a crane. The best record for one day was 1,340 ft. of pavement in 11 hours.


Image

Using trucks to haul gravel and cement during spring rains would have been impossible in some areas:

Image



Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 3:03 am 
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Here is another photo of a temporary industrial railroad track set up next to highway pavement site. This is of a Plymouth, a competitor of Whitcomb's.

Image

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 3:04 pm 
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Just to revive the thread, this is a photo taken from the cab of the 1929 90 ton Whitcombs sold to the Milwaukee line.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:17 pm 
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Just found this on the magazine rack at a local grocery store:

http://www.wwiihistorymagazine.com/current-issue.shtml

Quote:
Ordnance
American railroad workers in specially formed units labored to keep men and materiel rolling forward after D-Day.


From inside that article:

Image

"651 Whitcomb diesels" - that represents about two years entire production of the Whitcomb plant.

No source cited. Will try to contact them.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:29 pm 
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From the February 1945 issue of Popular Science:

http://books.google.com/books?id=AyEDAA ... el&f=false

Image

Image

Image

The diesel locomotives that this article talks about were Whitcomb 65-ton models.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 11:07 am 
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Location: Rochelle Illinois
Does anyone in this forum have a copy of this book?

http://books.google.com/books?id=wHGfrl ... &q&f=false

I am going to search our library system for this but I suspect I will want a copy. Used copies start at over $180.

I'm especially interested in this which comes from the summary, the pages that document this history aren't available on the net:

Image
Image
Image

This is of prime interest to me.

Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 9:56 pm 
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JACKPOT !

http://www.griffincunningham.net/Griffi ... hotos2.htm

From the 743rd Railway Operating Battalion in WW II came these photos and Whitcomb 65-ton centercabs are included.

Image

"One of our diesels and a bunch of our fellows. The engines are now painted black. A couple of them were on a ship then was abandoned then floated again.At sea five months and full of salt when we got them but we put them in running order."



Image

"Here we are on the platform in Herne- we are waiting for the engine to take us to work had to wear helmets and carry riffle in them days- that's me with the " X" closest to the food-K- rations."


Image

"Satty, Poor Boy, Johnny, Dewes, myself and Stark with Walt Miller in front. Taken at Gelsenkirchen."



Image

"Here I am in the engineer seat on one of our diesels. You should have heard the horn blowing when we took this picture. Pretty good smile this time."




Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 12:01 pm 
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I missed one:

Image

From the 743rd Railway Operating Battalion in WW II

"Here's the gang talking over the days work in Herne. We had a huddle like this every morning."


Image

"Munster. Here's a real shot. One of our boys dropped a bomb right on the apron of this 2-10-0. It really makes for a swell picture."


Steve

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 Post subject: Re: From Rochelle IL and doing Whitcomb Locomotive Research
PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:51 pm 
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A side topic but I found this interesting. From inside this 1950 model railroad catalog for dealers I found an add:

Image

In the middle add by Precision Model Products is a Whitcomb model:

Image

First one I've seen from when Whitcombs were still in production..

Steve

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