Expanding on a topic touched on in the "genset" thread by Mike, PCook and yours truly, but not wishing to hijack an informative and valuable flow of info over there........

Shortlines: to my mind, the classical, colorful shortline was most likely a byproduct of a nonrailroad industry connecting that industry to a common carrier, but that acted as sort of a common carrier itself in miniature. I'm thinking of the Graham County, Cliffside, Lawndale, Rockton and Rion here and the like, inlcude the regional favorite of your own.

Some mainlines had subsidiaries that functioned as shortlines - the Sylvania Central, Wrightsville and Tennile, Durham and Southern, etc.......maybe they were originally proposed as seperate entities but got caught in mergers, and so forth.

Others were shortlines but stayed seperate for a very long time, probably weren't supposed to be as short as they ended up being, and were originally common carrier railroads like the P&N, AC&W etc.

Some crossover like the Atlantic and Western - hard to imagine a more colorful typically Carolinian shortline, but was always in and of itself a railroad made to be a railroad but stayed classical in operation and appearance.

My perception of their locomotive maintenance standards and practices - speaking of the "classical" model here - are use it up, and replace it cheap when Billy Bob and Earl in the enginehouse can't tie it togoether with bailing wire any more, then strip it to keep the next least worst "new" operating engine in service as long as possible. Being an old guy, the transition in my mind was probably from small WW I era steam to used small industrial diesel electric. The change probably happened between 1950 and 1960. The "new" diesel was probably a previously military or military industrial heritage unit from WW II. This kind of coincides with the mass reconfiguration of machine shops when cheaper surplus machine tools were surplused out in the same era, and a lot of great 1890's belt drive stuff went away.......

Of course the subsidiary lines got castoffs from the parent, if they got anything but run until abandonment at all. Most of the seperate small common carriers got eaten and partially removed, some were later cut back off or recombined with bits and pieces as spun off feeder shortlines in the '70s and '80s. Maybe I need to add a category for "new" shortlines?

In any case, Mike was proposing a shortline would pursue a grant to replace prime movers with modern ones, and I jumped to the old style standard without considering anything newer - a generational failing, sorry. I am aware of grants made for track rehab for new era shortlines - my question is, if you are interpreting the history of shortline railroads in the south, is there a model that would support changing out an old Cat or Cummins to a new Green Goat? I'm thinking I could justify it as a practical consideration in a non interprative, operating collections case more easily, but how about approaching it from another direction, as a valid kind of interpretation in and of itself?

Me, I like the stuff that's most coloorful, interesting and informally eccentric and I think there's a lot of opportunity to tell some very entertaining history stories based on that approach, but I hate to limit my outlook based on ignorance of changing conditions. Any contributions about this or something on the subject in general?

dave

That is a very interesting posting, Dave. Just giving an individual point of view, the kind of conversion or upgrade of a locomotive we have been talking about in the other discussion does not particularly bother me when it is done using a fairly common locomotive while others of the same type are preserved. The builders and the railroads upgraded and modified their equipment frequently, although some of those alterations may not be too evident to the uninformed viewer.

Everybody has their own perspective on history, in many cases it is influenced heavily by their age or their occupational experience. Despite the passing of the years I tend to agree with the younger railroad enthusiasts that the newest and most modern stuff just as interesting as is the older equipment. It is a part of railroad history as soon as it is built. But a lot of people my age do not see it that way at all, their concept of what is "historic" begins forty or fifty years ago, and they are willing to argue that point until they die. And that is exactly what is going to happen, they are going to die and take their knowledge with them. It won't be passed along because they discouraged younger folks with more modern interests from participating in their organizations, and in some cases when they are all gone their collections may be disappearing too, because they have not made adequate plans to provide ongoing support. Unfortunately there are a number of railroad historical groups that are in the process of slowly committing suicide right now through attrition, and trying to talk them out of it is pretty much useless.

But going back to the contribution that can be made by newer equipment in addition to pulling the visitors around, one issue to consider might be whether a group actually pursues the "educational" mission that is supposed to be a part of their purpose or whether it was just viewed as a convenient declaration to allow qualifying for tax exempt status. In an educational perspective more modern equipment is a potentially valuable teaching tool as well as an attraction to younger enthusiasts.

PC

One of the fascinating things about shortlines is that some of them lasted long enough into the railfan era to develop devoted followings all out of proportion to their size. Think of the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the East Broad Top, the original Tweetsie, the Sierra, the Yosemite Valley, and so many others. . .these and many of the lines Dave mentions were first given main-stream railfan prominence by none other than Lucius Beebe, in his classic, "Mixed Train Daily," which as Beebe himself admitted, was as much a tribute to Archie Robinson's "Slow Train Through Arkansas," except Beebe had Charles Clegg along to shoot that camera.

A lot of stuff goes on the internet these days, and in this case, we have a wonderful site on the Buffalo Creek & Gauley (and parent company Elk River Coal and Lumber) in West Virginia:

http://www.buffalocreekandgauley.com/index.html

Just a diversion, I know, but have fun anyway. And have your speakers turned on for the BC&G site, and listen to some beautiful whistles from this little coal-hauler. . .

My friend John, who knows a LOT about NC shortlines, sent me a couple private emails in which he shares the information that shortlines purchasing new industrial diesels wasn't as unusual as I believed it to be. I'm guessing my bulk of exposure to the truly marginal and colorfully decrepit industrial shortlines has colored my perspective. Any insights?

dave

Dave, if you want to have some fun, do some roster research on a couple models that get forgotten anymore - the GE 70-tonners, and Whitcomb 65-tonners.

The GE's were postwar '47 for quite a while and went to an incredible collection of oddball buyers, all new, one and two unit purchases. My local favorite was the two that went to 'dieselize' the interurban Jamestown, Westfield & Northwestern under Saltzberg control. Didn't last but two years and the pair went to Iowa on another Saltzberg controlled line. If you had light rail and more traffic than a 44-tonner could handle, this was the way out.

When you look at that shortline era, it seems like the only thing that wasn't ready to collapse was the brand-new 70-tonner. It was clean and waxed. That size/weight/layout with the 600-hp Cooper-Bessemer isn't completely unlike a small genset locomotive today.

Whitcombs were another animal, because the big collection was war surplus - some when back to Whitcomb to get replacement wider cabs and some didn't, but they must have gone REALLY CHEAP because it seems like every steel mill, industrial railroad, and streak of rust got a couple. A few went to shortlines and some went to shortlines after their initial industrial railroad years.

I don't have any firsthand experience, but my readings have indicated that the 300-hp Buda heads on the Whitcombs were the weak design point, and the inboard radiators (not exposed to enemy fire, but put heat into the cab...)

Right now is the time if somebody wants to snag a 70-tonner, with the remaining M&ET fleet being sold off. Whitcombs, well, there can't be much more than about 15 left (if that), including hulks, and I think there are only two operational ones that I know of - the one at the Kingston trolley museum (ex-New York City Subway) and the "L&NE" unit run by the WK&S.

Oh, and if you don't think that a little diesel can tell a story, see what WK&S has put together on their Whitcomb. Wonderful:
http://www.jeff-z.com/wks/locoroster/602/rhp.html

Randy -

The 44-ton center cab Whitcomb at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana is still operational. It has a Caterpillar V8 diesel under each of its hoods. Built in 1941 for a munitions company in Iowa, it became a U.S. Army engine and served a number of other companies before ending up at HVRM.

Les

I believe the North Carolina Railroad Museum at Bonsal (New Hope Valley RR) owns a 45-ton Whitcomb as well as an 80-ton Whitcomb from the Beaufort & Morehead (?). Both are ex-military units, I think.

Incidentally, a wonderful example of a shortline diesel was unceremoniously scrapped with little notice several months ago. East Penn Railway No. 44, a 55-ton GE center cab, was scrapped at Topton, Pa. This locomotive was a ballasted 44-tonner built for the New York Dock Railway, where it was No. 55, and was in industrial service before East Penn purchased it in 1995. It boasted a water cooler in the cab and had double-jointed interurban style couplers from its days on the streets of Brooklyn.

Wayne, the 80 tonner is a Baldwin Lima Hamilton but the 45 tonner is indeed a Whitcomb. The Whitcomb is serviceable but the big BLH hasn't turned a wheel under its own power in a very long time. Incidentally, the BLH and 0-4-0T 17 are both veterans of the NewYork Shipbuilding Company in Camden, NJ, great examples of surplus power from military industrial first users later acquired by shortlines and industrial users - in the case if 17, it was Carbon Limestone, then WVN. I think I have the BLH manual laying around here somewhere - if not that unit then for a very similar one. I can put my hands on the Alco / GE books for the Laurenburg and Southern units........half my library is in boxes out in the barn.

dave

Oh, and if you don't think that a little diesel can tell a story, see what WK&S has put together on their Whitcomb. Wonderful:
http://www.jeff-z.com/wks/locoroster/602/rhp.html[/quote]


Wow, who woulda thunk it!

That was put together for the JCRHS Photo Freight in 2000. Lots of mis-information out there on Whitcombs, unfortunately. And yes, the heads have "issues". FYI The "LNE 602" is among the living again after some work last year and over the winter. A traction motor changeout, some engine accessory work and, finally, the inside of the cab got paint. It got fired up Sunday and did some switching in the yard at Kempton plus a check of the load sync of the two engines.

Now, if only that 20-year old exterior paint got worked on....?

Rob

Larger diesels also showed up on many shortlines, for example the 3 new Baldwin DS-4-660's that Virginia's Chesapeake Western dieselized with in 1946, and the second hand N&W Alco T-6's that replaced them in 1964. I'm rather intimately aquainted with those, as we now own Baldwin 663 and T-6 11 (preserved as N&W 41), and we're cosmetically restoring Baldwin 662 for the Virginia Museum of Transportation.