In the Michigan Iron Industry Museum at Negaunee, MI is an odd, geared, 0-4-0RT steam locomotive. The locomotive has a vertical boiler and cylinders and other details that identify it as a product of Alexander Chaplin & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland.

Bob Johnson (Whistles in the Woods) has researched the locomotive and believes it to be a Chaplin and I trust his research but for two items: First: at one time there is said to have been a small plate on the boiler "Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Co." Second: In 1989 my freinds Earl and Beth discovered a locomotive in a nature preserve in Belize. The locomotive albeit narrow gauge is very much like the locomotive at Negaunee. Again almost certainly a Chaplin except that stamped in the frame is "Tredegar Engine Works, J.R.Anderson & Co., Richmond, Va."

So, did Alexander Chaplin & Co. licence other firms to manufacture their locomotives? Are the boiler on the Negaunee locomotive and the frame on the Belize locomotive replacement parts? The real question is: does anyone out there have any information (other than ads in trade journals) about the Chaplin Co., especially any export business that they may have had with North America.

As you may guess, I am spending a little time working on a new edition of "The Book". Thanks in advance for any assistance.

J. David

jdconrad@snet.net

does the link below help?

Chaplin loco info

Very nice info on this interesting engine. I always imagined this to be a homemade contraption of the iron mine. I suppose it's to be expected that the machine should have come from Cleveland in an empty ore boat headed back north; the connection between Cleveland and Michigan's iron range was always strong.

When I saw this engine it was in a park, and I took the opportunity to stand on its frame and look down its stack. (It's small.) There I saw the strangest boiler design I've ever seen. What looks like an ordinary vertical boiler is actually a single-tube design. The boiler barrel is an annulus around a big central flue. The inside wall of the annulus has maybe 40 or so dead-ended short tubes projecting inward from it, each about 10 or 12 inches long. This is like a "porcupine" boiler on which single-ended water tubes project outward from a drum, but turned inside out. How the tubes were made, or how they were installed in the annular shell are as big a mystery as how they could be cleaned and how the water circulated in them.

Shamelss Plug:

Check out The Steam Railroading Institute's new web site at www.mstrp.com for the latest news from Owosso, including operations of Pere Marquette 1225 scheduled for June and possibly September, 2002.

Aarne H. Frobom
The Steam Railroading Institute
P. O. Box 665
Owosso, MI 48867-0665

http://www.mstrp.com
froboma@mdot.state.mi.us

I had a chance to look over Yankee a few weeks ago. The museum has been unable to make a positive ID as to its builder. I'm beginning to think that the frame/wheels are Chaplin, mated with a replacement boiler from Cuyahoga Steam Furnace. Everything I've seen and read about Cuyahoga Steam Furnace suggests that this is not one of their products. Comments?

Two more....

There is some potentially useful information about the company at Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. They have a page for the company at:

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Alexander_Chaplin_and_Co

Additionally, there's a photo of a contemporary locomotive to the one in Negaunee, and if I got this right it should show up below:



The frame and running gear from the Negaunee locomotive are similar to the one in the photo (which is of a "light shunting locomotive" on display at the Glasgow Museum of Transport. The one at the Glasgow Museum is said to have been constructed in 1888, while the Michigan one is listed (somewhat dubiously) as 1868. The boilers are quite different. This lends credence to the idea that the Chaplin locomotive in Michigan at some point received a replacement boiler.

There's some non-railroad related info about the company at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplin's_Patent_Distilling_Apparatus_with_Steam_Pump

And here's photo page devoted to another Chaplin product:

http://www.trainweb.org/loggingz/chaplin.html

And here's a link to a page regarding the restoration to operating condition of another Chaplin locomotive at Beamish:

http://beamishtransport.blogspot.com/2011/03/1871-coffee-pot-no1-rebuild-blog.html

And here's a link to an advertisement for a locomotive which appears remarkably like the one in Michigan:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertpool/5355252528/

The records of the Alexander Chaplin and Co. are retained at, and available through the British National Archives. The following link is to the page for their holdings on this company:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=056-28d69&cid=3#3

Visiting this page, you'll find that the archives hold a category of documents for this company entitled:

Records of Equipment Ordered and Tests Carried Out: 1857 to 1932.

The definitive information for this particular locomotive should be in this document, or series of documents, I would think.

David,

I took an interest in this loco while working on the 12, and have a few items I'll send you.
Attached to this message is a pix of a Chaplin locomotive that was in operation in Denmark.

Robert Yuill
http://www.historicmachineryservices.com

Robert, Jeff and Doug:
Thanks for the photos, information and leads.
I think that a number of questions would be answered if we know whether or not the "porcupine" style boiler was commonly used on Chalin products or if it was something that Cuyahoga Steam Furnace came up with.
J.David

The link below purports to accurately reflect the history of the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company and the locomotive in Negaunee.

http://www.gearedsteam.com/other/cuyahoga/cuyahoga.htm

I would classify the Yankee, at Negaunee, as a porcupine boiler.

Robert Yuill

How relevant this is, I don't know. But there is a very large historical record to indicate that the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company was, for a time, a prolific builder of steam locomotives, the "Nashville" a 4-4-0 built by the company pulled Lincoln's Funeral Train on part of its journey.

Additionally, there are catalog pages that strongly suggest that the Negaunee locomotive is in fact a product of the company. Weird.

I recently purchased this photo of Yankee at an unknown location (looks like a major event - perhaps the Chicago Railroad Fair? - note the F units and Cumberland Valley combine "B" in the background). It would appear that Cleveland Cliffs restored the engine to operable condition after it sat abandoned for many decades. This photo raises so many questions. Why is the locomotive incomplete today? Where did its parts wind up?

Jeff Terry

Great pix, but take a closer look. Where are the piston rods?

Robert Yuill

I see the piston rod very clearly on the near-side cylinder, going down to what is probably the upper part of the crosshead just above where the side rail blocks further view. You can plainly see the gear on the inside of the left-hand wheelset that the pinion on the crank, driven by the main rod at the other end of the crosshead (which will slide on the "bars" that form the bracket), will engage.

What is the problem?

I see that rod, but I do not think it is a piston rod.

Also, there is another lever with a pin hole connected to .....?

Robert Yuill