Engine 471 was last used for stationary steam at the Klein brickyard in Chaska, MN, and sat dead on a siding there from sometime prior to 1960 until Don Lind bought it in 1967. I was interested in buying the engine at that time, but opted out on the advice of a boiler expert who was less than bullish on a restoration. They were asking $1500.00. Don eventually had the engine moved to Annandale by truck. They separated the boiler from the engine, and moved the boiler, engine running gear / frame, and tender in three separate loads. I don’t know if my boiler expert was qualified to evaluate locomotives, but regardless of the condition of the boiler, the engine certainly was missing a large number of parts.
The brickyard at Chaska had a long and interesting history, of which I have never encountered much historical record. There were several plants and clay mining pits in Chaska that were served by an assortment of narrow gage railroads. There was 2-foot-gage with Plymouth gas locomotives, which were preceded by at least two 0-4-0T steam locomotives.
Some of this 2-foot-gage track was still intact in the 1960s. There were also a number of 3-foot-gage, four-wheel side dump cars. I have no idea of where the track was on which they had once operated, and no knowledge of what locomotives were used to pull them. In the 1960s, the dump cars sat in a woods with trees growing up through them, so their use was probably earlier than some of the more recent 2-foot-gage operation.
One of the clay pits in Chaska contains a steam shovel or dragline of some sort that is submerged under the water that fill the pit when its use was discontinued in the early 1950s or so. Old timers recall seeing it disappear as the water slowly rose. Today it stands with its boom raised in operating position, completely submerged in about 80 feet of water.
RTK
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