Your photo is Porter 0-6-0t,, c/n 962 for Oro Grande Mining (Daggett CA) from page 821 in Myrick's Railroads of Nevada and Eastern CA, Vol 2...

Yes, published records say it went to the Mohave & Milltown... To my knowledge there are not known photographs showing this engine on the M&M for certainty... the Mohave Museum in Kingman has one image that might be this engine... might or might not...

The Mohave & Milltown was scrapped in 1910... we know where the rail went... we know of the one engine that ended up in the river... the other locomotives including this one are unknown after end of operations in June 1906...

It is possible that they may have gone to some other mining tramway, to a construction project or to scrap... The almost certainly eventually went to scrap eventually...

Randy

Perhaps, but it could also be possible that the locomotive was left at the site of the old railroad. There's always a small chance that you could find at least one engine on an old abandoned line that was left to rust. Ever hear about the Lost Engines of Roanoke, or the Dinorwic/Penrhyn Slate Quarry's engines in North Wales or the Ffestiniog Railway? They survived into preservation today because someone had the sense to keep them where they were in the hope that someday, they would find a new home and have a chance to be saved from the scrap torch. If a locomotive's records stop without saying it was moved or scrapped, there's always a possibility that they could still be around somewhere....

You never know......

Nictrain...

We have an ongoing joke about a past member who believed against evidence that there was a Pennsylvania Railroad 0-6-0 in a flooded quarry... repeating myself, against all evidence...

Most lost engines are scrapped... with out evidence proving they were scrapped... the scrape industry is not very good at record keeping, it is not required...

There are reports suggesting a B&D Heilser was scrapped after the railroad was abandoned at Round Mt... in Depression or WWII scrap drives... It is pretty certain that the other Heisler was scrapped with the mill just before the war... this is what happens to industrial locomotives... It is likely what happened to most equipment at M&M... wanting to believe or not...

There are stories that seem to have a ring of truth... a standard gauge locomotive in the Sacramento River near Redding... associated with the Round Mt logging operation is almost certainly true...

I know of a small (a porter) with a blown boiler north of San Francisco in a log pond...

Several Towle Brothers Porters are the subject of rumors in the central Sierra...

The PCB Davenport could survive (more likely just the boiler) at Death Valley Jct...

The M&M 2-6-0 is likely still in the Colorado River...

The others are more likely long ago turned into scrap...

This is a sad truth, but a truth...

Randy

This is the photo from Myrick volume 2. The combine matches the one in a picture taken at Redondo Beach. The tank locomotive appears to be a 0-6-0.

A more detail view of the locomotive

Observing the small tank under the cab; it looks like this locomotive is equipped with air brakes.

P.A. Copeland provided me with this information back in 2005:

I have yet to find photos of some of the LA&R locomotives. So I cannot say what the wheel arrangement of the #24. Their six locomotives were renumbered once; but what little is know this renumbering was not done in order. There was another sale that the minute book records as #6 and the accountants as #22

I'm just saying, there could always be a bit of hope that at least one is still around. I don't reject facts, but I always believe that there could be a tiny bit of hope that there's at least one engine that could be, maybe, still around somewhere, just waiting to be discovered.

I'm just saying.....

But if you confirm that there was an engine scrapped, then I believe you, no questions asked. You're the expert, not me....

Changing the subject a bit now, I've been looking at a bit of information regarding Tonopah & Tidewater Motorcar #99 to see if it could be a possible candidate for restoration. This car has to be saved from the scrap heap somehow, considering the fact that it's the last T&T engine left in existence, and there are a very few selection of EMC railcars left in preservation. I have heard that the owner may be willing to give her to anyone who wants to preserve it, and even though it has been sitting there since 1967, it is in roughly good condition.




It can be restored, granted it will take a bit to get the right amount of funds for her restoration and to rebuild the other half of her that was cut off after her frame cracked. But with enough funds and support and manpower, we could do it.

The question is......

Should we do it?

Hello

The Union Pacific siding at CRUCERO CA still has part of the interchange track for Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad about 400 feet, Its used as a bad order set out track. When I worked out of Las Vegas for Union Pacific it was called the "T&T track"

Chris

I'm not going to be a curmudgeon for curmudgeonry's sake. But I will point out that one cannot "prove a negative." It's not upon the nay-sayer to prove a loco (or flying saucer or Loch Ness Monster, etc.) doesn't exist; it's up to the claimant of survival to prove existence.

That being said, however, remote desert railroad survivors are the one possibility to which we should give at least a faint bit of credence. There WERE a couple "stashes" of abandoned steamers scattered here and there in Arizona and Nevada. The last known "mystery" or "ghost town" stash was a pack of 20" gauge 0-4-0Ts at the Arizona Mining Co. "town" of Metcalf, northwest of Clifton, Arizona, itself in a hardscrabble "not for the squeamish" part of Arizona hard against the New Mexico border. The area of Metcalf has basically been obliterated by mining now served by the Arizona Eastern RR, and the five locos that survived somewhat intact into the 1970s, publicized initially by Dave Myrick's books and a few hard-core steam fanatics, have all been relocated and saved to "downtown" Clifton or elsewhere, although there apparently remains some confusion to this day over exactly which one was actually which Arizona Copper number and construction number in two cases.

Now, is it possible that a tiny 20" gauge steamer was trucked away from such a stash high above notoriously unforgiving country in the middle of the night, and then stashed in a barn or shed elsewhere? Much, MUCH more likely than, say, a PRR 0-6-0 or NYC Hudson was. Is it really possible that such a loco could stay hidden from the curiosity of railfans and local historians for over fifty years? Sure, it's possible, just as it's possible I could get hit by lightning out of a cloudless sky here as I type in the next five minutes; it's just unlikely enough that I'm not going to worry about either possibility.


http://visitcliftonaz.com/image-galleri ... ton-lives/

Good morning, gentlemen. It's me again.

Sorry for bumping this old thread, but I was looking through my grandparent's archives of photos dating back to the '40's and I found this picture of a narrow gauge tender engine that my great-grandfather had taken long ago:



The photo dates back to around 1954, but the photo gives no description on who this engine is nor where the photo was taken, and I asked around and nobody seems to remember this photo. I thought for a minute that this engine could be Rio Grande Southern Railway's #41 from Knott's Berry Farm but due to several design differences between the two engines, I've dismissed this theory. I know for a fact that this photo nor this engine was taken anywhere near Daggett or Death Valley, but curiosity has driven me to find out more about who this engine is and where it worked.

If anyone has any information verifying the identity and location of this engine, I would be most grateful for your help.

Sincerely,
Nictrain123

Oh, that's Knott's Berry Farm and Ghost Town & Calico 41 (ex-Rio Grande Southern 41, nee-D&RGW 409), all right. Knott's acquired the loco in August 1951, applied the diamond top to the stack (or it was left over from movie work), and converted it from coal to oil. It looks more authentic now, but your photo is a dead-ringer for all the vintage photos I've seen of the KBF operation, including the water tank in the left background.

Yep....I do believe that is No. 41, ex-RGS, at Knott's Berry Farm

Ah yes, very good. To me, it looks better now than it did back then. Anyways....

BREAKING NEWS!

I have found a lead regarding to the fate of the Daggett & Calico/Waterloo Mining Railroad's No. 1 engine "Emil." Apparently, according to my sources I have found that after American Borax closed the operations at Lead Mountain in 1907 in favour of better borax deposits at Tick Canyon, near Lang, California. 30 miles from Los Angeles. Apparently, at some point, American Borax merged with one of it's benefactors, Stirling Borax, and they bought up the Lang operations and somewhere they built a standard-gauge railroad (where P.C.B. 1498 comes in) and used it with the narrow-gauge railroad they already had there where engines were called "dinkies." The operations ceased around 1922 after Pacific Coast Borax bought out Sterling and the Lang mines were abandoned in favor of the better deposits at Death Valley and around Boron.

I have found a picture of one of their little 36' "dinkies", and it seems like a good match for 'Emil' if I ever saw one.





Found them on this website below:
http://elsmerecanyon.com/tickcanyon/borax/borax.htm

Also has some nice pictures of the properties in and around the Sterling mines, but it doesn't look like they left anything the size of a small steam locomotive around there, unless of course, if you're looking in all the right places...

Hello again, long time, no see chaps?

Forgive me for once again bumping this thread, but another mystery has come to light. Recently, I was searching around Tonopah and Goldfield, NV and when I got to the latter, I found this interesting little picture right here.



Yes, it seems like the railroad's back in Goldfield. Apparently, this engine was put on display across from the Santa Fe Street where the former Tonopah & Goldfield/Bullfrog & Goldfield engine shops are located, perhaps the remaining pieces of an attempt to build a railroad museum in Goldfield? I found this engine there, along with an old passenger carriage body, and recently it seems that someone painted it up with the "Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company" with the No. 1 on it's front, and putting a boxcar or two behind it for display.



This locomotive is a curiosity to me. It looks almost like a USATC S100 Dock Tank locomotive, which was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works during WWII to be used in places like England and France to help with the war effort after D-Day. I can't find any more information on this engine, but I am sure it does not originate from any of the original Goldfield Railroads, my stocklists of the B&G and T&G (from Myrick's books) don't record anything of an 0-6-0 tank requisitioned for use on their lines. And it's most certainly not the original GCMC No. 1, as you can see below in this picture:



According to Myrick's "Northern Roads" book, this engine was bought by the T&G in 1915 and it ran off the road due to it's air brakes malfunctioning, perhaps it was scrapped after that, I'm not sure.

But does anyone know what this mystery engine is exactly, or of it's origins? I'm curious to know if this engine actually did work in the region around Tonopah or not....

The engine is USATC No. 5014. It has no historical connection to the area.

http://steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=1415

Adding to the story. The locomotive on display in Goldfield was given to the Goldfield group by the California State Railroad Museum. It was purchased to provide parts for the restoration of their Granite Rock engine. Once the Granite Rock project was complete it was surplus.

Randy