I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with access to a Brookville locomotive where the final chain drive is located between the axles. Normally, the drive is bolted to the rear of the frame. We are rebuilding a "Type D" railcar owned by the Beaver Valley Jct. Chapter of the NRHS and are not entirely sure how it was originally assembled, as the drive was removed for repair and obtained in a disassembled state.

These locomotives would have a steel beam parallel to the axles, suspended from a brace on the outside of the frame.

Thanks in advance

Nick D'Amore

The Brookville Locomotive Works was still in business as of a couple years ago as a mining-equipment manufacturer. Sorry I don't recall the exact name, but they might be able to supply drawings of old equipment.

I was in Brookville, PA, a couple weeks ago, and the recently-renovated locomotive works (the only one in the U.S. not on a railroad?) was vacant and for sale. I don't know what that implies about the company or its records. The 9-rail multi-gauge test track and loading dock was still there, although the matching short turntable was removed some time back.

Still a cute town, just off I-80. Don't miss the cheap, red-neon motel decorated with B&O locomotive bells, and don't order the garlic pizza from the Italian restaurant next door. Those people are serious about garlic.

Brookville Equipment Corp. is still very much in business, but not at the old location next to the stream in downtown Brookville. To find their new location take PA 28 north to the point where it and US 322 split up and watch for Evans Ave. turning off to the south. Follow Evans all the way to the end and you'll find the new BECo. plant, a most impressive facility. Physically the plant is just NE of the former P&SRR shops, but there is no direct road connection between the two. There is a rail connection into the BECo plant and yes, they do still have a multi-gauge test track, including a turntable. While they still build locomotives, the big business for them now is the transit industry, building trucks for the New Orleans "replicar" trolleys and rehabbing PCCs for SEPTA.

Just had a tour of the plant back in November, and they are very much still in the mining locomotive business. They accumulated a stockpile of ex-SEPTA PCC's when they did that project for SEPTA on the rehabbed line in Philadelphia. They can do more trolley projects with the stockpile they have. The rebuilt units that they delivered are TRULY rebuilt.

The original plantsite was badly flooded and they outgrew it at the same time, so the new plantsite is from the ground up and quite nice and modern. If you've never seen about seven track gauges in the same place it's worth a look. The multi-gauge turntable is probably the only one like it in the world.

They have a direct rail connection with the B&P there in Brookville, so they can do pretty much of any heavy rebuild and painting work now. They still have a rather unique-looking industrial switcher available:

http://www.bmec.com/showcase/showiswitch.htm

I have no idea of what a "type D" railcar is, but the Rockhill Trolley Museum has a Brookville locomotive in its collection and in operation. If you would like to visit our museum and see the Brookville I would think that with some advance arrangement we could spot the unit over one of our maintenance pits for a look underneath of you believe that would help.

Contact us off list to make arrangements.

Here is a link to several photos on our website of our Brookville.

http://www.rockhilltrolley.org/roster/bv_gas.htm

Joel Salomon[/url]

Brookville also manufactures the heavy duty, PCC style, replacement truck used on the SEPTA, PCC II's and the New Orleans 450 and 2000 series, replica streetcars.

Gord McOuat
Halton County Radial Ry.

The current name is Brookville Equipment Corp. and it has a website. Be advised that the website will be slow to load if you do not have DSL. Seems that it may not have been updated since 2003.

There are two URLs that will get you to its website:
http://www.bmec.com/
http://www.brookvilleequipment.com/