Was watching Jim Terrell's "Shortlines of Michigan" DVD and came across something peculiar. He was filming a line of LS&I 2-8-0s at the Marquette and Huron Mountain, and panned for this shot of something I have never seen before, a siderod (powered?) lead tender truck? I know the LS&I was and continues to be an ore road, but what was the purpose of this on something as small as a Consolidation?

Probably an indicator of a truck-mounted booster (whether the motor was or is still in place remains to be seen). The siderods allowed you to have power on the wheelset right behind it, and that assuming that the booster is only geared to one truck. It would help starting a train or moving cars onto the ore docks.

Bethlehem Auxiliary Locomotive, wasn't it?
Franklin made a 'Booster' that was used on tenders, too, but I don't think it was as common to find one.

Turned out to be major problems because the side rods weren't balanceable properly, and limited the top speed dramatically; they also required that all four wheels stay machined to reasonably close tread profile and diameter.

The frame of one of these trucks survives on the ex-Union 0-10-2.

It is indeed a booster truck, and this truck (or a similar one) now resides in Williams, Az.

Eric

Yes, a tender truck mounted booster engine. If you look closely just to the right of the rear most axle in this truck is the steam line to the booster engine.

There is a flex joint (looks like an upside down funnel) then a short horizontal piece of pipe (insulated). Then the pipe goes up into another flex joint (funnel) mounted on the booster engine.

The booster engine was supported on the axle (like a modern traction motor) and drove a gear on the axle. They would only fit on the rear of the truck because of the close clearance between the front of the tender truck and the engine firebox, etc.

There is a short extension (looks like an ear) behind the rear journal box pedestal that helped support the booster.

The side rods (one on each side) transfer about half of the power to the front axle of the front truck.

IHB had some very large three cylinder 0-8-0's with this setup as well. Quite a bit of TE at low speeds.

http://www.rivarossi-memory.it/Riva_Loc ... 00-8-0.jpg

http://www.rivarossi-memory.it/Riva_Loc ... 00-8-0.jpg

NYCRR Class U-4a, 75,700 pounds of TE from the locomotive and another 13,000 pounds from the booster. For a total of 88,700 pounds of TE from an 0-8-0 !

That is about 2/3's of a Big Boy (of course it could not do it at speed).

Assuming the booster engine had two cylinders these would be some of the very few steam locos ever built with 5 cylinders !

They only had 3 of them for use in the yards around Chi Town.

Cheers, Kevin

Still on LS&I 35 at the Illinois Railway Museum; the engine in the OP's photo may well be the 35. This is one of the reasons IRM was willing to let LS&I 34 go (now Western Maryland Scenic 734) IRM wanted an example of a tender booster equipped engine in the collection.

LS&I #29 arrived in Williams with it's tender booster and controls mostly intact. It was set aside during the initial rebuild. I'm a little surprised that it survives to this day.

Russ

Some engines were equipped with two Bethlehem trucks:



And there were three-axle versions (and I think at least one railroad, Southern if I remember correctly, used two of those on a common tender for hump service - talk about 'too many legs and not enough steam') - here is a famous D&H locomotive showing one off:

OK I'll call your multiple booster truck story with my tale of the train that had a steam powered truck under every Pullman Car, it was the Jerusalem and East Josephant RR Company. Ah Yes, the old J&EJ RR, we sure miss it's passing.

Every Car had a sauna and a wide screen 99 inch LCD TV... A pretty mean feat back before they even invented color TV. The standard for color TV is called "NTSC"; that stands for "Never The Same Color".... Ha Ha Ha.

Amazing what all those long gone folks thought up is it not ?

Cheers, Kevin

Huh?

Reference to a tall tale railroad, among other things the line had Pullmans so big the conductor had to ride a motorcycle though the train to get to his tickets, and he punched them with a six-shooter!

Grandest, greatest railroad ever built (grins)!

Some other examples:

https://sites.google.com/site/bostonand ... %20003.jpg

Here is a new Lehigh Valley 4-8-4 with a three-axle tender booster. Reportedly these didn't work not so much from balance issues but because rotational speeds were too high for the rod bearings. There was at least one published account of one of these engines running at night and the fireman spotted sparks coming from those rods, resulting in having to stop and take the rods down.

http://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/lv5101.htm

Another road that used the three-axle variant was the Pittsburgh & West Virginia, on its pioneering 2-6-6-4s:

http://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/ ... wv1101.jpg

Like the Lehigh Valley, the P&WV found the tender boosters to be a maintenance nightmare in road service, and they were later removed. The tender trucks remained the same, though, with an unusual axle spacing and a different appearance testifying to what had been there.

Overall shot of a P&WV 2-6-6-4 to get a better look at the locomotive as a whole, and apparently after the tender booster had been removed. It's notable that the photo is dated 1937, when this locomotive would be relatively young.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3731539

Hocking Valley Scenic Railroad 2-8-0 33, one of the LS&I fleet, had a booster on the front tender truck also, when it was delivered to Nelsonville, ohio, in the early 1970's. It didn't last long and was replaced by a regular tender truck. The powerful and heavy Consolidation simply did not need a booster for the light HV excursion trains. I don't know if the booster was scrapped or kept, or if it went to the Age of Steam Roundhouse along with No. 33.