Had the privilege today of visiting Iron Horse Central (www.ironhorsecentral.com) in Lindstrom, MN. This is a small, private museum built around a restored railroad depot. The organization owns three steam locomotives:

Dresser Trap Rock No. 4, an 0-4-0T which has been converted to a tender locomotive and which is gloriously operational on the museum's one mile loop of standard gauge track



In the image below the 0-4-0 is preparing to depart the museum/depot with a flat car and a caboose. The fireman is Jeff Terry, Lineside Legacy columnist at Railfan & Railroad, and a Canadian Pacific engineer.



Dresser Trap Rock #1, an 0-4-0T is shown below and undercover awaiting a full FRA restoration. The boiler and running gear are said to be in excellent condition.



Last but not least is Northern Pacific L-4 0-6-0 No. 927, formerly the NP shop switcher at Brainerd, MN, and formerly a pigeon poop collector in Lum Park in Brainerd. Now being cosmetically restored at Iron Horse Central.

This is a good looking tank to tender conversion. The tender appears to be real instead of homemade and the lack of journal box lids means it probably has roller bearings. Do you know what the tender came off of? I wish I could see this one.

John Bohon

Sure do! The tender came from Duluth & North Eastern No. 1. It actually does have friction bearings. You can't see 'em in the photo because of the low resolution, but the covers are open. The engineer was doing a walkaround and inspection at the time.

NOTE: I may be wrong about the journal box covers. When I get home in a couple of hours I'll look at a hi-res photo to make sure I was right (or wrong) about this

Regards,
Doug[/b]

Okay...I wasn't crazy (well not much). The journal box covers were open, see the image below cropped from a 10 megapixel version of the shot.

steaminfo wrote, "The 0-4-0 is preparing to depart the museum/depot with a flat car and a caboose."


"A caboose", ah, the detail in that! Although, a railroad of origin and a number might have been a nice addition! ;<) Roger

Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic No. 572, pictured below. The flat car was Soo Line, friction bearings, but I didn't get a number. The motive power in this image is a little Plymouth diesel-mechanical switcher, but I didn't get much (if any) background information about it, other than that the owner is a nice guy.

And here's a shot of the little Plymouth switcher. They also have the last Baldwin ever built (a little diesel-electric built to a Whitcomb design) but for some reason I failed to get any photos of it. I guess I'll just have to go back.

The whole operation reminds me a lot of Williams Grove, diesel critter and all. Even the friction bearing tender trucks are similar to those under 643. I suspect those folks are having to much fun this weekend. Could we be lucky enough to get a report on how the weekend went? What sort of engine was D&NE number 1?

Thanks for showing us this interesting operation.

John Bohon

I'm not sure what D&NE No. 1 was. I remember the tender being in Cloquet in the 1950's minus its locomotive.

I was only there on Friday, but it seemed to go very well. The locomotive performed admirably, made lots of good noise on the 'big grade" on the far side of the 1.5 mile loop.

These are nice people. The Thompson brothers, and their sons are responsible for this operation and they are wonderful, entertaining people who are very proud of their operation.

There were a couple of busloads of kids who rode Friday, and they had a good time.

I'm going back the next time they do this.

Regards,
Doug

Thanks!

"Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic No. 572, pictured below."

I stopped by there also
Discussed history of the porter line with the owners
very nice people, with great documentation on their stuff

dr