Hello Folks,

Iam looking for information on a particular locomotive of the Black Diamond Coal Mine railroad. This was a 5.9 miles long and ran from Black Diamond Landing, California (now part of the city of Pittsburg, California) to Nortonville, California. It was owned and operated by the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company.

Apparently the railroad had four locomotives - two by the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, one built by the Vulcan Iron Work in San Fransisco Works and one from the Baldwin Locomotive Works.

The locomotive I am interested in was named "Hayward" built by Vulcan Iron Works of San Francisco in 1867. It was scrapped but was still residing in an West Oakland scrapyard in the 1900's when the photo below was taken. The locomotive in question is the one in the foreground.

This photo appears on page 137 of "A Locomotive Engineer's Album" by George B. Abdill. The photo credit is to Roy D. Graves Collection courtesy of the late Gill Kneiss.

Are there any other photos or specs. that exist? It appears to be a similar (albeit much larger design and without the reverse flue boiler) to the Oregon Pony (0-4-0) that was also built by Vulcan.

Thanks and best regards,

Terry Harper

Well, let's see what a little searching can bring up:

General entry on the Black Diamond road from Wikipedia (no doubt you've already seen this, but it's included just to have complete entries in one place):

History of Union Iron Works and its locomotives, by Gneiss:

http://web.mac.com/vtlyon/iWeb/The%20Ly ... story.html

Hey, you never know what you'll stumble across on the web; that history of the Union Iron Works is from this page for the Lyon replica:

http://web.mac.com/vtlyon/iWeb/The%20Ly ... 0Home.html

Web pages on the successor to Black Diamond Coal Company of California:

http://www.southport-land.com/history.html

http://www.blackdiamondcoal.com/

A page from Geared Steam Locomotive Works, but alas, short on data:

http://www.gearedsteam.com/other/vulcan/main.htm

Not connected to Black Diamond, but a bit on early California rail history, with some photos of early power, including an unusual 2-2-0 built by Vulcan (scroll down to find the photo):

http://www.railswest.com/californiabeginnings.html

Again, not connected with the Black Diamond, but a modeling page featuring a preserved fireless engine; this has to be one of the ugliest steamers I've ever seen, but I'm still glad it's around.

http://www.mylargescale.com/tabid/56/af ... fault.aspx

Darn! Wish I could have done better for you. . .

OK, a silly question:

Just based on the position of the cylinder relative to the wheels/drivers, could this be classed as a "geared" locomotive? It is not direct coupled.

A Heisler has siderods, but the power comes via geared mechanism.

If the crankshaft is geared to a driver (with or without a speed reduction) and the drivers are fit with connecting rods, then could it be thrown into a similar category as a Heisler, etc.??

Yes, I know Shay, Heisler, Climax, etc. have trucks for articulation, etc.......but I'm just wondering......

I posted same time as J3a-614 did. One of the links he posted verifies the geared status.

Thanks!

Doing a little more checking. . .don't seem to be able to find anything on the Hayward, but I can find a little more on Vulcan Iron of California. . .not easy, as Vulcan Iron is a fairly common name, and more than one locomotive builder used it as well. . .

General illustration page that came up:

http://www.google.com/search?q=vulcan+i ... 0gHP88yRBg

Some findings made through this page:

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

http://www.gearedsteam.com/other/images ... wd-lbr.jpg

http://www.gearedsteam.com/other/vulcan ... n_pony.jpg

An engine named "Old Betsy," built in 1862, photo courtesy of Gordon Birrell:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/356 ... b5be_o.jpg

Photos from Vulcan, with a tiny 2-2-0; could it be one of the engines originally built for Napa Valley service?

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/co ... 12105.html

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assetserv ... /CHS-11982

This is the best I can find; hope you enjoy it anyway.

J3a-614,
Thanks for your efforts (sigh) but.... I already checked all that before I posted . Most of it is not relevant to what Iam searching for thus my post hoping to stir something up. I had hoped that the reference to the photo source might have helped the cause.

T.

I have found the Roy D Graves archive. Its located at the Bancroft Library, Berkley and contains over 23000 images including a whole lot of railroad related images - California shortlines etc.

The only Black Diamond image is indeed the one I posted above. Its listed as 1900 but was copyrighted by an L.S. Slevin in 1914.

L.S. SLevin appears to be Louis Stanislas Slevin Louis S. Slevin (11/7/1878 -11/9/1945)
A commercial photographer of some repute.

Best regards,

Terry

The far loco in the photo is almost certainly the William Penn, built by William Norris in Lancaster PA in 1835for the Philadelphia & Columbus RR, which was soon taken over by the Pennsylvania Railroad, who leased the loco to the Strasbug Railroad. When in 1863 the Strasburg RR purchased a new locomotive and returned Wm Penn, which was then extensively rebuilt by J A Norris and sold to the new Western Pacific Railroad (of 1862, not the later Feather River Route) of California in 1865.

William Penn was one of two (of 10 locomotives delivered, 12 purchased) that was "set up" for service by the WP, before it became "embarrassed" and ceased construction. It may have seen service on the San Francisco and San Jose, and possibly the Market Street Railroad in San Francisco.

The Western Pacific, and with it the 10 locomotives and some miles of US rolled rail were sold to the owners of the Central Pacific in late 1867... Once "owned by Central Pacific the WP locomotives recieved letters in place of numbers. William Penn was "J" It apparently served as a switch engine in Sacramento initially. It was overhauled by the CP shops in Sacramento before being transfered back to the Western Pacific as a construction engine.

By 1870 the Western Pacific was merged into the Central Pacific where William Penn was numbered 175. She is on the 1878 CP roster but according to some accounts is not used after 1876. She was formally retired in 1883.

In 1885 she was retrieved from retirement and rebuilt and sold to Pacific Iron and Nail of Oakland. It was reportly last used in 1897. It was photographed by L.S. Slevin about 1900. (I suspect the photo above from those photos)

It was described as "An Old Locomotive" in the Railroad Gazette, March 12 1886, then in September 1898 in Locomotive Engineering was the subject of an article "Particular Locomotives"

Other than that, I have no idea what locomotive might be pictured above....

Randy

Randy,

Its too bad the William Penn disapeared after such a varied and long history. The story of the William Penn features pominantly in the delightful booklet by the late Benjamin Kline "The Odyssey of Five Locomotives" It also provides good insight into the Norris Works.

I have searched for any companion photographs of the "Hazen" that might of been exposed by Louis Slevin but the above appears to be the only one. I guess we can be thankful that a noted photographer of the time spent some time in that grimy West Oakland scrapyard.

Best regards,

Terry

There is an article about the Black Diamond in the December, 1970 issue of The Western Railroader (issue #370). Unfortunately, the article only refers to the Hayward as "a Vulcan Iron Works design, a slow rigid 0-8-0 geared locomotive, quite similar to the smaller four-wheeled kettles that appeared at Gualala and Caspar in the redwood region."

However, there are a couple of photos of the Hayward credited to the Smithsonian Institution.

THANKS CHARLIE!!

NOW THATS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR! I have uncovered quite a bit about the railroad its self.

here is an excerpt from the California Journal of Mines and Geology Vol. 7 1888

The Black Diamond Railroad is a trifle over five and eight tenths miles in length. Of this the first two and eight tenths miles from the river to the edge of the hills is straight and has a grade which though not uniform being less near the river than it is near the hills, nevertheless averages for the whole two and eight tenths miles about sixty feet to the mile. The remaining three miles in the canon from the edge of the hills up to Nortonville is very crooked and has an average grade of about one hundred and ninety feet to the mile. The maximum grade however is much heavier than this and is situated at the upper end of the road nearest the mine where for a distance of five eighths of a mile the uniform grade is two hundred and ninety three and three fourths feet to the mile.

The minimum radius of curvature in this road is three hundred and twenty one and one fourth feet corresponding to about an 18 curve. This also is at the upper end of the road leading to one of the bunkers Its use was necessitated by the position of the bunker and the narrowness of the canon It is just about as sharp a curve as the locomotives employed here will travel on without leaving the track.

The cars now employed on this road have flat wooden bottoms with rectangular sheet iron sides and ends strengthened with angle iron. One of the ends consists of a door hung from a bolt which runs across the top and furnished with a strong latch on each side The cars are four wheeled. Each car occupies about ten feet of track and stands about six feet two inches high above the rails. The interior dimensions of the car body are as follows; length eight feet, width six feet four inches, height three feet four and one half inches. These cars weigh on the average about four thousand pounds apiece and each car carries from ten thousand to eleven thousand pounds or a trifle over four and one half tons of coal From twelve to sixteen of these cars form an ordinary coal train.

The locomotive merely hauls the empty cars up to the mine. When loaded the train runs down to the landing by its own gravity and it needs, of course, careful attendance at the brakes to prevent it from running too fast. Indeed whenever the track is muddy and slippery, as is often the case in the rainy season, it is found necessary in addition to the most careful handling of the brakes to sand the track to a greater or less extent before the descent of every train over that portion of the road which has the heaviest grade...[/


Best regards,

Terry Harper