"When I was seventeen, it was a very good year....."

Of all the steam locomotive I've known which have been put out to pasture and suffer an ignominious fate, none bothers me more than NH&I 1533. As a pretext, I love Canadian steam. This little locomotive is the ideal small scale operation engine, and she deserves a better fate than to wait, parted out in the weeds of Bucks County, for thirty years.
I don't know the business of NH&I, nor do I presume to tell them how to run a railroad, but if they aren't going to rebuild this gorgeous locomotive, why not give it, lock, stock, and barrel, all parts included, to an up and coming 501c3 operation.

Okay, I got that off my chest. Here are the pictures.












Sorry about this one. The image is bigger than my scanner can carry.

Dick -

I agree. One pretty little Ten-Wheeler. Let's hope she is restored one day; at NH&I or elsewhere.


Les

The RUMOR that floated around for some time from folks supposedly in a position to know said that 1533 was the victim of a botched boiler repair, with a hole cut in the firebox somewhere. Of course, I've also heard the same about former VBR/Army 0-6-0 #9. If one searches this forum enough, they may find various reiterations of these reports.

Since we have two parties here that profess to be intimately familiar with the NH&I, can any "horse's mouths" give us an accurate report?

See also:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32564&p=168311&hilit=1533#p168311

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19124&p=81053

I think the neatest thing for me in these photos is the capture of the frog still being in place for the freight house siding's south lead....

From the early to mid 1970's Erie Lackawanna dining car 747 was on the NH&I and I understand used on occasion. Does anyone have any photos of this car on the NH&I?

PR

To answer two questions here, the freight house is to the left of the station and behind the train. The frog and guard rail were for the track leading to the freight house. Today there is a high level platform where the freight house lead used to be.

With regard to 1533's boiler, "someone" used a torch to remove some of the washout plugs from the firebox. Its been awhile since I've seen the old gal, but he either took out the threads with the torch, or torched out the entire 'pad'. I would imagine it could be repaired, but would be expensive. I also remember some of the engine's 'jewelry' going into the 9 and 40.

New Hope's passenger station, for most of its Reading Company life, stood on the North side of Bridge Street.

As Seen Here:

http://industrialart.industrialartifact ... 03_xlg.htm

It was moved from that location when the Reading sold it to a hunting club, which placed it to the north of where the current RR's Engine house is, back in the woods. It was returned to track-side in preparation for the 1966 re-opening and placed where it is today, which required the removal of the south end of the freight house lead track.

You'll note in the b&w Reading Co. era (from Time Life Mag - 1952)photo that the back side of the roof was chopped off to permit passage of Trucks....this chopped off portion remained until the 1991 re-building of the facilities by new management.

When I say "for most of its life"...it was said that the station originally stood where Stockton Street currently runs between Bridge and Ferry Sts. I have yet to see Photos of this, and it really would make no sense, considering the main drag has always been Bridge Street, but who knows?

Elliot- Why would the repairs be so expensive? I'm thinking of welding in sheet metal that has been cut and bent to form, then drilling and tapping the plug holes. Perhaps my lack of direct knowledge has me over-simplifying? And what kind of steam savvy mechanic would go ahead and do something that would stop a rebuild in its tracks? Was the individual held accountable?

The truth is, a feasible repair is not that difficult nor that expensive to any degree. It would be fairly routine putting a flush patch in so that a new Huron or Prime washout plug bushing could be threaded and subsequently welded into place. Or, one could always steer away from the generally accepted practice of the CN (or GTW) to use Huron or Prime style washout plugs and just use standard tapered style. This would be another option once the patch was in place.

Another truth is that the individual responsible for the botched surgery was anything but steam savvy to say the least. Perhaps said individual was more interested in promoting his name by crudely plastering it all over the locomotives and rolling stock, but I shall say no more. My guess is the plug seized in the bushing from lack of maintenance or a small leak (or both) which likely sealed the plug, but deposited enough corrosion to effectively act as locktite between the two (I've seen it happen). There are certainly more intelligent ways to remove a stuck Huron or Prime style plug, but I think more a malicious mindset was behind the act to get back at the organization IMHO. Someone with an ill-willed agenda could easily bring a perfectly good engine out of service with such an act at the time especially if he knew there was no way it could be repaired in the immediate future. Let me just clarify again that the latter is unproven speculation and just my opinion.

Something also rings in my head that an accepted standard practice for a repair such as a flush patch on an unstayed portion of the boiler had not yet been legally allowed at the time, but I'm not clear on that. Hopefully, someone with a little more knowledge can elaborate. Either way, why someone would do that to an otherwise perfectly sound locomotive is beyond me.

I recall hearing about a book being written on the history of the new Hope and Ivyland Railroad, several tears ago. Did this book ever get written and published? Would be an interesting read.

Joel

I believe Kurt Bell was working on one, but one of the biggest obstacles I think he would be coming up against is confirming the accuracy of the stories.....

McHugh will say one thing (ever read his history page? - he places plenty blame on individuals that he names) and then people associated with the various volunteer groups up there that ran passenger service will say something different.... who do you believe?

I can believe the claims that they intended to make repairs to it (it was a very beat up loco by 1975), but the costs and time frame needed were not doable in the time frame allowed to satisfy the PA contract to operate the bi-centennial service (which had paid for the major upgrade to the ROW for 30MPH service as part of this agreement of service provided by the NH&I) ...the Railroad was beyond broke, so 9 was chosen instead as a quick and cheaper option. 1533 had last run regularly in 1974. It only ran a few trips in 1975 and then put in for repairs.

The NH&I didn't then and still doesn't own any diesels. They always have leased them (the current ones are owned by 3 or 4 employees and leased to the NHRR) so they had to have 40 and 9 up and running for daily service by July 1976 for that contract.

The NH&I was broke for most of the first 25 years of its existence. They always seemed to spend more money than they had coming in. Even to this day, their passenger service does not turn a high profit and it certainly didn't back in the 70's and 80's. They've had have much better fiscal and operational management since the mid 90's, after few years of a rocky road following the rebirth in 1991.

They reported to the FRA that they carried just over 44,800 passengers in 2011.

I imagine that their freight (not sure how many cars they move in a year) and parking lot(s) revenue is what pays the bills today.....along with the liquor sales income.

Ah, the big block letter name on the Baldwin diesels from "Emerald City"; I remember it well. I don't think it was anything ill-willed or political that befell the 1533 as much as it was a young family members stupidity. (And I'm being far nicer to him than he was to me in his 'I Love Me' NHIR online history'-)

Still enjoying my 30 days off, 32 years later-

EDM

It is indeed an "I love Me" history, ain't it? Some good laughs out of it, but also some interesting photos!

Maybe it was an attempt to heat rusty and seized threads that got out of hand.
I have lent Mr. Bell a good deal of historical material for the NH&I book, but he still has a lot more to review. Can anyone help?