Just ran across this photo on the Trains website.

It is a B&O "Little Joe" 0-4-0T at work switching the docks in Baltimore. There have been thousands of these locomotives produced in several modeling scales, but photos of the prototype engines are rare. this is the only shot I've seen of one actually working.

[url=http://www.trains.com/photogallery/gallery_large.asp?idObjectLibraryGUID={93CAD179-3EBF-41A4-9B92-F53D2B689588}]http://www.trains.com/photogallery/gallery_large.asp?idObjectLibraryGUID={93CAD179-3EBF-41A4-9B92-F53D2B689588}[/url]
ryarger@rypn.org

"B&O Power" by Stauffer has several photos, at least one action photo of these little locmotives.

wilkidm@wku.edu

Personally, I like this shot of a Little Joe at work.

I know, I know. I couldn't resist.

Frank Hicks

Dave's Electric Railroads

frank@gats.com

This is a fairly well-know shot among B&O afficionadoes. The building is the former Baltimore News-American office and printing plant on Pratt Street at the Inner Harbor. Wonderful, wonderful building--notice how the arch leading to the freight dock is perfectly integrated with the rest of the facade. Has to be one of the most ornamental entrances toa freight dock anywhere. On the other side of the building there was a loading dock with bailing machines for the newspaper bundles that went into the delivery trucks.

The News-American was Baltimore's last afternoon newspaper; it went under in the 1980s and the building was demolished in the late 80s. The development to replace it fell through and now instead of that neat industrial-classical facade we have a parking lot.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Sadly, none of these petite little steamers was saved, although the B&O Museum did save St. Elizabeth's Hospital #4, a similar albeit slightly larger 0-4-0T, and it's now back up and running at the Museum. (Museum officials attempted a clandestine test run last week during a weekday, and learned the hard way that they need to learn how to fire the fella--the Baltimore City Fire Department responded to several calls for structures or lots ablaze, thanks to thick smoke in the wrong places!)

lner4472@bcpl.net

Is it known, were those oil burners or coal? The cab is awful small for coal firing.

johnathon_kruger@hotmail.com

> Is it known, were those oil burners or coal?
> The cab is awful small for coal firing.

The four B&O class C-16 0-4-0T "Docksides"--nos. 96, 97, 98, and 99--were built as oil burners.

Two of the four--nos. 96 and 99--were later rebuilt as 0-4-0 tender engines and were covered to coal firing. They became B&O class C-16a.

BTW, in addition to the numerous models of "Little Joes" / "Docksides" offered over the years (in everything from N scale up to 1 1/2 inch scale live-steam), there have been many models offered of the C-16a "converted Docksides" as well. An example being the old Rivarossi HO scale "Shifter" locomotive offered for many years under the AHM label.

See below link for a photo of C-16a "converted Dockside" 96.

Regards,
Jim Robinson


converted Dockside

Does anyone associated with the B&O Museum know why one of the C-16s were not preserved? It seems that by the time they were sold for scrap, they were already "famous". Of course, so were the EM-1s, and they all got away.

hpincus@mindspring.com

I can't give you a precise answer, but it might shed some light to remember the history of the collection and the purposes it served. Major Pangborn, the railroad's publicity wiz, started pulling it together for the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in the 1890s. From that time on the collection more or less served to support B&O's public image as the road of heritage and gentility and antiquity--which means it was mostly a collection of 19C curiosities--"quaint" engines of venerable pedegree. B&O added to the collection through the 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse, and then pretty much stopped.

The road never had a philsophy of trying to assemble a representative collection of all their steam through the ages--the museum today has only two examples of 20C steam, and they were both really saved by Ed Striegel, not the RR. I'm sure the management looked on the docksiders as utilitarian switchers, and maybe a reminder of an expensive street switching operation they'd as soon not have been bothered with--certainly not anything that would burnish the glamorous Royal Blue image.

We're just lucky Ed saved the Q-1 2-8-2 and the P-7 Pacific--they could have easily gone the way of the EM-1s and Big Six 2-10-2s.

eledbetter@rypn.org

In his book, B&O Power, Larry Sagle regretted all of those scrappings, not just the Dockside switcher (although B&O Museum DOES have an electric that did the same job in another Baltimore neighborhood) After the Fair of the Iron Horse in 1927, B&O scrapped the first US Mallet and one of the first RR Electric locomotives. I think there was a philosophy that the ancient stuff was historic, but the merely old stuff was junk.

Fortunately, CSX believes otherwise and B&O Museum is developing an unequalled diesel collection. Remember, that GP40 is an historical artifact, not just an old diesel.

The Electric City Trolley Museum Association