This doesn't directly involve railway equipment preservation per se, but it does involve documentation and railway history research so I hope it's okay.

I'm working on researching the Macomb Industry & Littleton (originally Macomb & Western Illinois), a shortline railroad in western Illinois that was built as an interurban but never electrified; it ran from 1903 until 1929 mostly with steam power. The exception was a gasoline-powered six-wheel boxcab locomotive built in late 1903. Several photos of this, including a couple of "roster shot" type pictures, exist - see links below. Unfortunately I have no idea who built this engine or even what its exact mechanical design was. It was referred to as "the electric motor" but this may have been more a PR slogan than an actual description of it. I assume that it was gas-mechanical, but might it have been gas-electric? Any suggestions of who might have built this engine (I do know that the carbody was delivered separately from the gasoline engine itself), how it worked, or where I might look to find more information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Photos (Western Illinois University Collection):
http://gelwood.railfan.net/misc-m/mwi-bc0awlu.jpg
http://gelwood.railfan.net/misc-m/mwi-bc0bwiu.jpg

More MI&L photos can be found at http://gelwood.railfan.net under "Misc - M."

What an interesting critter. To my eye the cab resembles McGuire Cummings products and they were more or less local, being in Paris IL. (But you already know that, Frank)

Being referred to as the electric motor could mean that it was planned to be run electrically once the railroad was electrified. As such it might have been built as an electric boxcab and the inside fitted with an internal combustion engine and generator to fill in as the source for volts. I do not see radiator, exhaust stacks, or any other items bristling from the roof. Maybe they had to run it with the windows and side door open to avoid asphyxiation.

I wonder if that is the case if each axle would have been motored. Just think of a control circuit for series-series-series?!!!

Bob Kutella

Interesting ideas. The construction is really primitive, and to me it looks like any shop capable of building a boxcar could have built the carbody. I have the benefit of having clearer versions of those photos at my disposal, and it appears that the monitor roof contains some sort of piping - maybe like on the I-R boxcab roofs? And, for what it's worth, this engine was a notable failure. It could barely haul one car at a time, and even then it couldn't make enough speed to keep to the schedule. It was (mercifully, perhaps) destroyed in a carbarn fire after only a year.

The thing almost looks like it was built on a stock Pullman passenger car truck; would there have been room for an axle-mounted traction motor or two?

Could this have been a battery unit? Both Edison and, I think, lead-acid batteries would have been available in 1903. That might explain the low power and the lack of any visible power source. The air tank on the roof might have been a storage air reservoir for a couple of brake releases in case it wasn't equipped with a compressor.

Aarne Frobom

It certainly looks like a three axle passenger car truck to me; I suspect it was home built, and when they were looking for a long wheelbase truck to build it on, very likely the only thing that they came up with ready made from the local railroad was such a truck. That of course would have caused problems with the drive, if electric; three motor equipments are not common. Then again, given your performance data, it may have only had a single driven axle. I seem to recall that the Charles City Western in nearby Iowa was not originally electrified, and had a single drive axle boxcab that appeared to be built on a Mc Keen motor truck.

As for the type of engine and lack of cooling, 1903 is pretty early for any sort of high performance engine; I could envision a really large hit-or-miss oil engine, complete with its water jacket and natural convection cooling, residing inside the carbody. Such an engine would have been pretty familiar to mechanics in rural Illinois at the time.

Let us know if you ever find out any more. Are there any pulished reports that refernce the lcolor of tye locomotive?

How about Chain drive? One axle could be attached to a motor mounted above floor via a chain? It wouldn't be pretty, but it may have worked.

I thought about that. It seems to me that this is certainly possible, though that would mean that all the newspaper references to the locomotive being "electric" were inaccurate (I for one consider this possible). Since the locomotive body was mounted directly to the truck, a direct chain drive wouldn't have presented much of a technical problem.

I had also thought about the possibility that it was battery powered, but the newspaper pretty clearly states that it was driven by a gasoline engine.

There's no information on the locomotive's color. The railroad's first coach was described by the local newspaper as being Tuscan red, but there's no color description of the boxcab itself.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Is there any information on the early projects of McKeen? I know nothing about McKeen's history.

There is always "Interurbans Without Wires" by Edmund Kealty. It has the construction records from all of the major, and many of the minor motorcar builders. It has a good section on the McKean company. You might be able to find something made by the minor builders that matches what you are looking for.

By the way, the coaches appear to be interurban-like in appearence. Do you know who built them?

Good question. You're right: the first two passenger cars, #1 and #2, were basically electric cars by design since the line was intended to be an interurban and was just never electrified. Car #2 was built by St. Louis Car Company in early 1904 on order #427. Car #1's origins are a little less clear, but with help from Harold Cox we've developed the hypothesis that it was built by St. Louis Car Company on order #410A. It was delivered in December 1903.

This interesting critter looks home-made to my eye. It doesn't have the level of finish one would expect from a McKeen car, and looks like it was cobbled together atop a six-wheel passenger car truck. Are there any sort of foundry marks on the truck, if you have a clear print and a magnifying glass to check? Good luck!

The locomotive you show was too early to be a McKeen product, although that builder did have a switcher listed about 1915. Elevation drawings of the McKeen are contained in IRM’s Chicago Terminal Commission papers, currently consigned to a box car. The McKeen was steel construction with the usual geared transmission.

A better bet for your critter is the Patton Motor Car Company, of Chicago. Patton built several gas-electric street railway cars in 1898. Drawings at the Newberry Library show three cars with open seating at each end and a motor compartment in the center. The bodies were by Pullman, since George was the principal financial backer of the company Trade publications state that at least two “shunting enginesâ€

Fred, thanks for the suggestion! I had never heard of Patton before, but its product sounds tantalizingly close to what the M&WI had. I'll definitely have to look into this further.