No, not those ones... :)

Seeing the stocky 0-4-0T just acquired by the Age of Steam roundhouse reminded me of some other stocky steam locomotives I once saw. During a visit to the Crown Locomotive shop in Wyano, PA, I'm pretty certain I recall he had a few very stocky steam locomotives on the property. Can't recall the gauge, could have been small standard gauge, maybe narrow gauge. All I remember is they they were so chunky they looked like bricks. Not sure, but the tanks may have been squared off?

I think he was using them as a parts source for his 4-4-0's, but maybe that was just speculation on my part, it's been way too long to recall for certain.

Anyone know any details? Heritage, where they went, any survivors?

Though the company's mailing address was in Wyano, Pa., near West Newton in Westmoreland County, the actual shop and/or storage facility (could have just been a junkyard, for all I know) was supposedly in Elizabeth, just up the river (south) from McKeesport.

Grand Pooh-Bah Conrad's Steam Loco Directory of North America lists five 23" gauge 0-4-0T Porters, from 1937 to 1947 construction, out of the Jones & Laughlin steel mill in Pittsburgh, the last active steel plant in the "Steel City," and a "mystery" 30" gauge Porter 0-4-0T from Alco Products of Latrobe as stored in/near/at Elizabeth in 1987.

A preliminary search at SteamLocomotive.com turns up nothing; SteamLocomotive.info basically rehashes the Conrad listings with no photos or updates, but one entry bears notes to this effect:
The oldest 30" gauge loco and two of the 23" gauge locos were purchased from Crown Metal Products in 1990 by Bob Michel (Sr.) of Campbellford, Ontario, Canada. Those locos were for sale in 2006.

I live just a few miles from the former Crown manufacturing site. It was in a rural location on PA 48 in Elizabeth Twp, not in the town of Elizabeth. The 23" ga. Porters from J&L Steel's South Side Works were for the most part either sold or cut up after Crown went out of business. They were incredibly heavy, almost "ingots with wheels," and as such had little practical use elsewhere. I believe one of them was reworked by Crown for some tourist operation and despite some weight reduction was still a track wrecker for its new owner and thus had a short life there. The Crown plant had formerly been a farm and the original building where the early locos were built was a barn. Some more modern metal buildings were added later. When I visited there in the 1970s the biggest part of their business at the time was building and rebuilding the former WABCo line of steam powered air compressors.

Why were these locos built so heavy? Because they switched cars that had no brakes at all and thus all braking depended on the loco, in which case the heavier the better.

How did J&L end up with such a strange gauge? GOK, but it's interesting to note that predecessor Otis Steel of Cleveland was also 23" gauge.

David describes what I recall as well, it was a farm, and the "locomotive shop" was simply a barn or metal building. I don't even think they had a test track there. The steel locos were on a short stretch of track on a hillside, (I think there was track under them?) and obviously hadn't moved in a very long time. "Ingots on wheels" is an excellent description of what I remember them looking like.

"The oldest 30" gauge loco and two of the 23" gauge locos were purchased from Crown Metal Products in 1990 by Bob Michel (Sr.) of Campbellford, Ontario, Canada. Those locos were for sale in 2006."

Last I heard they were never sold as the owner had unrealistic idea of their worth. I looked them over back then.

The slabs on wheels have roller bearings! I was looking at converting one of these into a 2 foot Forney for a friend a few years ago....boilers hell for stout, but the frames were far too heavy to make even a stripped boiler and frame on wheels practical for such a conversion. The cylinders are also pretty large for the boiler capacity. They are certainly great examples of locomotives designed for a unique purpose......more at home in a steel mill museum.

dave

Two or three of these locomotives (I'd have to find my notes) were in Cranberry, PA north of Pittsburgh in the 1990's or early 2000s. I believe one was sold, another had a cracked cylinder and was dismantled for parts. Somewhere I have a Kodachrome of Mr. Hot Metal holding the torch at that time. Neither Edaville, WW&F, or any of the other heavy-rail 24" lines wanted them either... roughly 40 tons of slab metal rolling around with nothing but steam brakes!

Anybody get a picture of them? Anybody?


Les

The 58 and the 59 were at Benkart's Rigging in Cranberry when I saw them. One had a cracked cylinder block so a friend of mine bought the boiler as Benkart was going to cut that one up. That boiler made its way to California to replace a rotted out boiler on a Porter 0-4-0 out there.

The other locomotive is reportedly in Ohio somewhere. I saw a photo of it recently. Much of the frame weights have been removed unfortunately. As a 45 ton 23" gauge locomotive it would have been a unique piece to preserve. I wanted to buy this one from Benkart but at the time I was young, broke and had nowhere to put it.

Is this one of the locomotives, on the lower left of the linked photo?
http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?rgn1=ic_all;op2=And;rgn2=hpichswp_ci;med=1;q1=cars;q2=MSP%2033;size=20;c=hpichswp;back=back1385310457;subview=detail;resnum=10;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;cc=hpichswp;entryid=x-msp33.b007.f20.i01;viewid=JAL1258.TIF
(Soaking Pits at Historic Pittsburgh Digital Archive)

I also found this photograph of tracks outside the plant.
http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?rgn1=ic_all;op2=And;rgn2=hpichswp_ci;med=1;q1=south%20side;q2=MSP%2033;size=20;c=hpichswp;back=back1385309955;subview=detail;resnum=54;view=entry;lastview=thumbnail;cc=hpichswp;entryid=x-msp33.b005.f07.i03;viewid=JAL1105.TIF

-O. Anderson
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/18inch

That does look like one. I ventured into my slide closet and found my images, this one has my friend Bob Bailey standing in front, which gives scale. The saddletank is beside the engine, upside down. You can see how it's massed to fit the available space. I thought I had a photo of the massive wheel weight/counterweight, but couldn't find it (yet).

Bob probably lost some sleep thinking about getting this for his backyard 24" line, but in the end passed on it. It probably would have snapped his 25lb rail like a twig. The Maine 2-footers passed as well.

I believe that you can get a glimpse of the top of one on the Hocking Valley Scenic Railroad's Facebook page. Scroll down, its in the right-hand column.


https://www.facebook.com/hvsr3


Bruce E. Babcock