That's very interesting, but as we all seem to be overlooking, 2100 most certainly has rods now. Where did they come from if 2100's originals are on 2101? Were they fabricated during the Kughn restoration, or did they come from the rumored 5th T-1 that survived scrapping (temporarily)?

When we began the 2100 restoration in 1988, the bent up 2101 rods were still laying in the pit in the Hagerstown Roundhouse. We came to an agreement with the B&O Museum to retrieve the missing 2100's rods from the 2101. We took these rods to an aluminum foundry in Baltimore and had duplicates cast in aluminum. These are now on the 2101 and the 2100 runs with her original rods.

All this discussion of swapping parts reminds me of one trip with #2101 out of Baltimore to Harpers Ferry when we suffered a major air brake system failure. The basic problem was with the air compressors on the locomotive (I really don't know more details) and while we waited in the suburbs for a Geep to arrive and haul the train west there was considerable dispair about how to deal with the problem for future trips in the schedule. My contribution was to remind the railroad folks that they had a museum in town, which they owned, which was full of locomotives with the same compressors and they should go there to get what they needed. It was a genuine "Ah Ha" moment, and that was done. Parts were taken off the first USRA 2-8-2 in the collection. They had #2101 back in operation in a few hours and brought it to Brunswick to haul the train back into Baltimore that evening.

Well thanks to everyone for their contribution. I had no idea this subject would get so many replies!

That's really interesting, Gary! I had no idea 2101 was on display with aluminum "falsies."

There was also a tender swap between 2100 and 2101 after the fire, so the tender that is currently on 2100 was the tender that went through the fire while on 2101.

I came across this picture on The Chessie System Photo Archives; http://www.trainweb.org/chessiephotos/. Yes, it’s used with permission.

It’s the 2101 after the fire, the first one I've seen of it all chard up.

> and was at that time still located at Streigle Scrap in Baltimore.

The company was Striegel Equipment and Supply and it still exists. An entrepreneurial fellow with previous experience at Hatch and Kirk bought Ed Striegel out. He kept it at the Chemical Road site for a while but eventually relocated due to being ripped off on a fairly regular basis. The company now has facilities in Crystal Springs, Pennsylvania and Mukilteo, Washington.

In avid pursuit of all things Western Maryland, I contacted Striegel Eqpt & Supply in the Spring of 2000. I was graciously given permission to browse through a dozen or so file cabinets of documents from Chemical Road. In addition to the Wild Mary treasures I found were some documents; letters, invoices and receipts; exchanges between Ed Striegel, the American Freedom Train Foundation, and our own CO614.

I won't publish any of that information, but I will tease you with some of it. The price for the Reading T-1s (2100 and 2101) was less than I paid for an Alco T6 in 2008.
You couldn't repair the drivers today for what those 4-8-4s were purchased for back then.

While cannibalizing museum locomotives to keep other engines serviceable makes sense from an operational standpoint, as far as preservation goes it's a disaster. To this day you can walk among the steam locomotives at the B&O Museum and see pipes that end in the air, where clearly some appliance was before. I am completely aware railroad thinking and museum thinking are two different things (because I have done both), but all artifacts once placed in a museum must be zealously protected and not used a parts source.

All those pipes ending in the air on all those locomotives in Baltimore are the result of the disaster asbestos abatement program from 1989 and 90. The abatement contractor had no concern for the historic preservation of those engines. The pipes were cut off - sometimes inches from a union - and thrown aside just to get the abatement completed fast and cheap. I hear there's a room full of unidentified pipes laying there all mixed up from all the engines that were abated. It's a very sad state of affairs.

I was aboard the trip on which the knuckle pin fell out. As I recall, the pin failed somewhere east of Lansing, maybe around Webberville or Williamston, and one front side rod was removed - not both. The train made it through the first large curve in Lansing before the first driver axle became out of phase with the other three and the engine locked up. I don't recall how this was resolved, but I recall sitting next to the scrap yard behind the former Motor Wheel plant for a long time. I don't recall if the train went to Grand Rapids behind Diesels or with the lead driver axle idling.

- Aarne Frobom

Sadly this can be taken to extremes. Protecting on object to the point of it's own detriment is just as bad. It's neither one or the other if we want to actually preserve and save our history. So no, zealously protected is NOT the way to save our history. It's not just the saving of an object that determines what it's value in a collection.

When I told the story about the use of parts from the B&O Museum to get #2101 back in operation due to an air brake system failure my understanding was that the parts they needed were internal ones, not something that would even be noticable when someone looked at the donor engine. And as someone else pointed out the situation with cut off appliances and pipes was damage done by a contractor doing asbestos abatement. Later on I heard that some leading truck springs were replaced with ones from engines at the museum as well, with the worn ones going back in their place. I have also seen worn parts on Frisco #1522 swaped out for ones in better condition from other engines in the MOT collection, with the permission of the curator. This can be overdone but when done with care and with all involved knowing about it and giving permission it really should not be a problem.

The fire was at the former C&O roundhouse in Silver Grove, KY. The yards, roundhouse and most everything is gone now. The CSX mainline from Cincinnati to Huntington, W.VA. still goes through Silver Grove. Locomotive sat next to the burned roundhouse for several months before being towed away.

Dale Brown
Erlanger, KY.

For Gary P. Bensman,
With regards to the rods swap.
If the 2100 now has her original rods and the 2101 has aluminum rods, what sort of aluminum were they fabricated from?

Aluminum can be a very strong metal but in the case of driver rods as large as a RDG T-1, could they be used to haul a train at 70+ mph? If and when 2124 in Scranton ever gets the go-ahead for restoration, would aluminum rods be worth looking into to keep weight down if they are feasible or would they be too ligh and possibly throw the engine off balance?