The thread on 0-6-0F engines caused me to ask about the status of two 0-4-0F listed in steamlocomotive.info as owned by Potomac Electric Power Company. PEPCO 2 is listed as stored by PEPCO and PEPCO 3 appears to have disappeared in the 1970s.

Any updates on either fireless?

Thanks!

Wesley

Some Photos from circa 1979, I am guessing NRHS Convention tour.

-Hudson

In the other recent fireless thread, I commented that I thought this technology may have been retired prematurely. I may have to revise that estimate after seeing photos of these beasts in the US in operation in 1979.

Of course, like the other steam fanatics around here, I wish they were still around and running, too!

Here's a link to a 2012 DLM feature on fireless steamers, showing a couple of working locomotives in Switzerland:

http://www.dlm-ag.ch/en/news/175-vorfue ... haffhausen



DLM notes that diesel switchers typically spend 75% of their time idling (not pulling trains) and therefore for a lot of reasons, fireless steam switching locomotives still make a lot of sense.

Accckkk! Are you kidding me?? This was running in 1979 when I was going to school in DC and I didn't know? Dang it.

I don't have disposition data, but it should be noted that PEPCo had three 0-4-0F's, one each by Porter, Heisler, and Davenport. Of course the Davenport was a Porter design, since they bought out Porter's loco business in 10/50 and afterward built about a half dozen fireless locos to Porter designs. I contend that the Davenport fireless delivered to PEPCo in 8/54 was the last commercially built steam loco for a US buyer. "Steam" doesn't necessarily have to imply coal or oil fired in this case. Actually it was coal fired, just that the fire was someplace else.

New fireless locos were still being built in East Germany as late as 1987. In the right application it had to be a very economical form of switching power.

BTW, Heisler sold their fireless loco business to Porter in 8/41. At least one, and possibly as many as three, Heisler locos under construction at the time of sale were completed and delivered as Porters. I know for certain Porter b/n 7330 was one such loco, definitely a Heisler in disguise. Porter also adopted various features of the Heisler design (e.g., roller bearings) into their later production.

In February 2002 a friend in southern Maryland wrote, "I found the PEPCO Porter! It's on a farm here in Calvert County! Do we want to go photograph and examine it? This is the loco from Benning, not Alexandria."

He added, "I was told yesterday that the owner is willing to GIVE it to whomever wants/can haul it off of her farm. Apparently her late husband got it for the Chesapeake Beach RR Museum but they don't want it so it has sat where it is. This loco was serviceable when stored. It shouldn't be too tough to make it run again seeing as it has no firebox, flue tubes, or other regular steam loco stuff that requires FRA certs. This is a "fireless" cooker. I understand that they can be made to function off of compressed air as well as steam."

I did go out to see it and, if memory serves correctly, it was in someone's driveway, close to the owner's house, off Maryland Route 5 southwest of Washington, DC in southern MD. I drove out there and, sure enough, there it was. I looked at it as a possible addition to the roster of the Walkersville Southern but no action was ever taken in that regard. I never heard anything further on it so I can't say for certain that it's still there today.

The Pepco #3 was scrapped and I am trying to find out when. I purchased the Davenport builder's plate from an employee at the Pepco Benning Planet in Washington, DC. He told me the locomotive was in a pile of rubble and took the plate that was still there. The plate is construction #11722 from 8/1954. I have to agree with David Hamley that this was the last US built steam locomotive for a domestic customer even though it was an 0-4-0 fireless locomotive. I was elated to add it to my plate collection.

Hi Ron:
I show it as being scrapped c.1992 at Burrhill, VA.
Be well,
J.David