The series about the use of locomotive bells as church bells was quite interesting. A local church here in my community just placed a locomotive bell outside in a sign display. It is complete with cradle, but hung upside down.

Question: Anyone care to tell us about locomtive artifacts they might have picked up in garage sales, church fairs, or abandoned as roadside refuse? I'm sure some of our readers have number plates, builders plates, whistles, bells, and headlights, that were simply considered junk by some steam lovers heirs.


glueck@maine.edu

True stories all.......

*A P-RSL semaphore signal dismantled and lowered to the ground minutes before the signal mast was bulldozed, by bribing the bulldozer operator to take an early--and long--lunch.....

*The British book appraisers appraising a late collector's library, when the widow comes in with some hunks of metal wrapped in an old bedsheet, "Might these be of any particular interest to anybody, do you think?" They turned out to be the LNER Doncaster builders plates (brass) to "Silver Link", the first LNER A4 Pacific.........

*The nation's presumed-largest collection of steam whistles was accumulated by the owner of a boiler shop in the South, which dismantled more cotton compresses, mill, etc. than anyone else. The collector still has had to resort to payoff, including (according to one legend) one complex owner who finally surrendered the rights to the massive whistle in trade for a pair of custom snakeskin cowboy boots and a steak dinner......

*The standard "price" of a steam whistle from a scrapyard years ago was either a bottle of bourbon or a box of *good* cigars to the scrap foreman or cutter.......

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

None of that but I got a Wrought Iron coupling link with a small pile of scrap at an auction.
Mike Nix

2rivers@upstel.net

My wife and I visited a Garage sale a few blocks over. The wife drew my attention to an odd dish in a box of old kitchenware. I recognized the pattern; Dining car china from the Colorado & Southern, with the entwined 'C&S' logo. The owner had a price of $5 on the dish; I haggled him down to $3. After the deal was concluded, I asked where the dish came from; They had no idea, except that they had picked it up at another garage sale several years ago. After we got back home, I looked up the dish on the Internet, and found an identical dish in a lively auction on E:bay where it finally sold for $350. I donated the dish to an area train museum with an extensive dining car china collection, where it is now on display.
I still don't know the whole story of how a piece of C&S dining car china came to a garage sale in the small town of Valley Center, KS.
I also once came across a local scrapyard which was cutting up an ex-CNW Geep. I was able to buy anything I wanted for the price of 18 cents/pound. I bought the control stand, two number boards, and a twin sealed beam headlight for a grand total of $45.

Dan

dan-rohrback@cox.net

* FREE for a Sunbeam headlight from the Ga and Fla Ry (engine unknown) from a relative of my wife's.

* $ 5.00 for the builder's plate from N&W Y6 2130...still warm from the torch when the scrapper handed it to me.

* $ 8.00 for the headlight from L&N J4 2-8-2 1768...from another scrapper.

* 20.00 for the headlight & number plate from
IC 4-8-2 2448...from the IC at Paducah in 1962.

* .25 each for over 40 dishes with RF&P logo from a restaurant supply company.

* $ 10.00 for a Hancock Air Whistle and $ 15.00 for a Nathan 5 chime horn...from the FEC Ry in 1975.

Etc, etc, etc

-Jim Herron

Herron Rail Video
hrvideo@mindspring.com

* FREE for a Sunbeam headlight from the Ga and Fla Ry (engine unknown) from a relative of my wife's.

* $ 5.00 for the builder's plate from N&W Y6 2130...still warm from the torch when the scrapper handed it to me.

* $ 8.00 for the headlight from L&N J4 2-8-2 1768...from another scrapper.

* 20.00 for the headlight & number plate from
IC 4-8-2 2448...from the IC at Paducah in 1962.

* .25 each for over 40 dishes with RF&P logo from a restaurant supply company.

* $ 10.00 for a Hancock Air Whistle and $ 15.00 for a Nathan 5 chime horn...from the FEC Ry in 1975.

Etc, etc, etc

-Jim Herron

Herron Rail Video
hrvideo@mindspring.com

Alexander:

When was that and what happened to the plates? I'm guessing a collector or perhaps NRM in York.

Joshua

Surviving D&H Non-EMDs

My own finds wouldn't mean much to non-serious steam heads:

- A boiler jacket cover for a washout plug
- A bronze lubrication line fitting
- A broken staybolt cap
(All these were found in the dirt at various locations in the N&W's Portsmouth, Ohio yards when I worked there in the early 80's.)
- 2 books of blueprints for tools, bushings, and pins used on steam locomotives (found in the trash)

Do you ever wonder how many really cool pieces of steam "junk" are still lying around in scrapyards- maybe buried under a pile of auto hulks or maybe lying in plain view? The upper portion of a smokestack, a section of driver, a side rod, who knows what else. In my experience, scrapyard operators aren't the easiest people to deal with, but it would be a great project to have a group of people investigate a scrapyard where steam was known to have been scrapped in quantity. I'll bet a lot of great items could be found. Anyone here ever tried this?

Regards,
Hugh

whodom2001@yahoo.com

...but the "accessories" that help bring the past to life. I'm talking about the little things ...the lantern that Mrs. Weeks (Station agent for the Fostoria and Fremont, Kansas,OH) used for flagging trains on the LSERy & WORR. The lantern used on the siding at the Berlin Heights, OH LSERy substation. Or the motormans stool from the LSERy ...ya brought your own or you stood up all day. There is no place that you can ride a Lake Shore Electric car today but you can still get some of the personal side of the story from these items.


lamontdc@adelphia.net

A Philadephia & Reading locomotive diagram book, 1918 edition, found in a locker in the abandoned Reading enginehouse in Shamokin....

A "SHAY" cab-side plate, a corner of which was poking up from the dirt beside the Graham County RR shop in Robbinsville, NC....

A smokebox door and a main rod from a PRR I-1 in the weeds near the site of the East Altoona roundhouse (they wouldn't fit in the trunk!)....

Two framed PRR calendar pictures found at a yard sale and bought for $5 each....

Etc....

K4s1361@hotmail.com

Sure and even better these items didn't sell and the sellers were moving so they gave me three adlake lanterns. Two are PE ry marked on the clear globe as well as the body and the other an SP Co also marked. Another day I scored an old first generation electric Handlan for 50 cents.

I have som old Chesapeake and Western Railroad Paychecks that are in good shape and blank. They will become part of our collection
Andrew Martin


amartin@wlu.edu

This is turning out to be a very interesting thread! Hugh, I'm in agreement with you. I'll bet there are innumerable bits and pieces of essential steam iron and brass laying around under layers of cinders, wet asbestos, and mud. One might atart looking in Sterling, Illinois, if OSHA and other Feds would let you. A metal detector would go crazy.

The story about the I-1 Decapod door and rod is great. I wonder if anyone picked it up or saw it preserved? A close friend of mine had a Canadian National locomotive stack in his yard, which we recovered from the river's edge, 60 years after a head-on at that site. The woods are still full of broken iron and cinder screening.

My father was directing the excavation of an old cinder pit on Long Island, when one of his workmen brought over a filthy canvas bag. Inside it were four bronze switch locks, with LIRR cast into them in filigree.

I'll bet Virgina Scrap Iron and Metal will reveal some interesting stuff once it's cleared.

glueck@maine.edu

> The story about the I-1 Decapod door and rod
> is great. I wonder if anyone picked it up or
> saw it preserved? A close friend of mine had
> a Canadian National locomotive stack in his
> yard, which we recovered from the river's
> edge, 60 years after a head-on at that site.
> The woods are still full of broken iron and
> cinder screening.

Yes, both the smokebox door and the rod were rescued by others, as far as I know. There just was no way they would fit in a Honda Civic!

K4s1361@hotmail.com

> Alexander:

> When was that and what happened to the
> plates? I'm guessing a collector or perhaps
> NRM in York.

As I recall, five figures at auction--and that's pounds sterling, not dollars........


LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net