Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum plan to host a visit from Bock Lumber Company 1.

• Bock Lumber Company 1, 0-4-4T Forney (BLW 32792 / 1908)

Complete information is available at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum website.

Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum: http://www.hoosiervalley.org/news/bock- ... ad-museum/

TRS -

This will NOT be a "visit" by Bock Lumber # 1. Rather, she is coming to Hoosier Valley on a long term lease.


Les

CONGRATULATIONS, and BEST OF LUCK to you HVRM members, but I can't help but think that you'd have saved me a whole lot of trouble and expense if you had just fixed up Audrey a few years back. Anyhow, I'll be looking forward to my next visit to North Judson. A Baldwin Forney ought to be a real good fit for your operation, especially with that SD9 you just got to cover the heavy hauling.

Take Care & WORK SAFE,
Sammy & Audrey

From good news to even better news.

Maybe I'll try to get out your way this year. I try
to avoid the Illinois toll roads as much as I can.

You have to love any engine where the headlight is almost as big around as the boiler.

I see in the HVRM material that this engine was once owned by Barney Pollard of Detroit. In the 1960s Pollard was notorious in the antique-car world for hoarding so many early cars that for lack of space he hung them by their noses in a disused factory near Detroit City Airport. An early member of the MSU Railroad Club, the late Pete Camps, grew up in that neighborhood and snooped in this warehouse as a kid--purely out of curiosity, of course. I can't remember if Pete spotted the Forney. It's so small it might have gone unnoticed.

Aarne H. Frobom
Skulker City, Michigan

Greetings:

I visited the Pollard collection in July 1973.

The Bock 0-4-4RT was well overgrown and behind a number of trucks (road type). Aside from missing most of it's easily removeable parts, it had a large hole rusted through the boiler. In those days, it would have been judged "unrestorable". Just shows how times, dedication & money can change things...

Also in the Pollard collection at the time were a pair of 3 foot gauge Henschel 0-4-0WT (well tank) locomotives which were later sold to Midwest Central (Shop Services?) at Mount Pleasant, IA. One of these operated there for a while. The other one was converted to diesel hydraulic and now (to the best of my knowledge) is at Six Flags Over Georgia.

Pollard also had another former Archer Foundry & Machine Works locomotive: Baldwin c/n 11051, a 3 foot gauge 0-4-2RT. This one has had several owners and currently is being restored in Dover, OH.

Be well,
J.David

PS: When I was there, the automobile collection had been burned. There were dozens of very old cars sitting, noses pointing up to the sky, in the remains of burned buildings. JDC

Didn't Pollard also own the LNE 0-6-0 now at IRM?

Howard P.

Greetings:

Les: I'm sorry to have hijacked your thread, in retrospect I should have started a new thread titled: B.J. Pollard steam locomotives (and antique autos).

Howard, you are correct. IRM's President, Herbert N.W. Hansen purchased former L&NE # 207 in August 1968. However it didn't go directly to the siding adjacent to Herb's laundry that he rented in Elgin, IL.

I was still volunteering for Richard Jensen in 1968 and one day I showed up at the C&WI 49th St. roundhouse to see #207 sitting in the stall that we usually used for repair work. Dick had not mentioned that it was coming, so I was quite surprised. He said that we were going to repair it for operation. I helped remove that weird white stuff that insulated the boiler and began chipping rust off the flexible staybolt sleeves and caps. After we had chipped through numerous (hundreds of?) sleeves and caps, the locomotive left for Elgin and sat there until July 1973, when it surprised me again, showing up, unannounced, at Illinois Railway Museum. Unfortunately, one of the eccentric rods had dropped off the tender deck somewhere between Elgin and Union (and probably is still along the C&NW/UP right of way we searched but couldn't find it). Herb donated it to IRM as part of his settlement with IRM (a long story, less germane to this thread than the forgoing).

But wait, there's more! Pollard also owned former Michigan Central 0-6-0 #8794, later New York Central System #6894. He bought both of these from Nicholson Terminal & Dock Co. at River Rouge, MI. No. 6894 passed through several owners and now resides at Connersville, IN; property of Whitewater Valley Railroad.

Be well & stay safe one and all,
J.David

PS: The one former Pollard locomotive which I haven't mentioned (or ever seen) is a Jung 0-4-0WT which is 57 cm gauge and is owned by someone unknown to me, last sighted adjacent to a Wisconsin & Southern wye at Merrimac, WI. If anyone knows who owns this locomotive along with the Hanomag 70 cm gauge 0-8-0ST which it sits with, I would be most grateful! JDC