I didn't have a tape measure, but yeah, a 4-foot lever seems about right - as well as a good foot-high clutch pedal.

I believe the one at the Passumpsic Railroad in Barnet, VT (a private railroad) is a LeRoi V8. It has tons of torque but can go through 20 gallons of gas in less than 20 minutes, easily.
Alan

When I worked on the Narragansett Pier Railroad in the mid to late 1960s, Tony Hannold, then owner of "the Pier," acquired a 25-ton Plymouth that had a six cylinder Le Roi gasoline engine. It was a hoot to operate with the clutch & long gear shift lever. I swear the four-speed gear box and transfer gear case were bigger than the engine. Top speed in fourth gear and full throttle was around 7-8 miles per hour.

I believe No. 35 ended up somewhere in New Hampshire, either at Clark's Trading Post or the Hobo Railroad. I have no idea whether the loco is still there or in what condition it's in.

Thanks!

There’s a LeRoi engine with a blown out block in a stored Plymouth at the Southern Michiga— wait a minute.


At the time, a search was made for a bargain basement gear reduction, and a new one was priced. That was the end of that. There was no money; SMRS had only started and was improvising operations with speeders. The decision was to train operators to limit engine RPM, however that proved difficult without a tachometer or reprogrammed governor.

Of course, there’s a very practical way to get well regulated 0-1000 RPM at 20-40 horsepower continuous (200hp peak) at a sensible cost. It’s staring you right in the face. Wasn’t so common in the 1980s but today, sure.


I was just there, at their annual open house. (this is their busy season; they are closed in the summer.) Very impressive operation, or to be more precise, non-operation, though they have a number of operational units and a healthy member base. Even a PRR faction, as well as several NYC coaches. Virtually everything is tip-top. The passenger coaches are by-and-large HEP and powered from shore power with air conditioning operatonal, and very attractive displays inside.




Plymouth #1 arrived at the museum with a Twin Disc torque converter behind a Leroi. This was clearly a kitbash, as the unit had shipped originally with a clutch. (It is common for conversions like this to fail, and for those disasters to end up at railway museums where volunteer staff bang their heads bloody against the wall trying to make it work (when it never did before)… but that is not the case in this situation.) The Leroi + Twin Disc did its job for years at Hayes-Albion. The locomotive was retired when the Leroi engine had a problem.

Indeed the torque converter is Twin Disc, though the Cummins came after SMRS acquired the unit. The issue was that the Twin Disc was rated to an engine that turned 1000 rpm max, and the Cummins turned closer to 2000. The Twin Disc was indeed a very reliable unit, no doubt helped by the failure mode: around the perimeter of the torque converter are “dump valves”, simple diaphragm valves held shut by hydraulic pressure piped radially on tubes. These drained the torque converter when you disengaged it. The diaphragm pushed inward against the centrifugal force of the fluid, so over-revving would, at best, overpower the diaphragm and drain the torque converter; and at worst, break the dump valve. We had a lot of both, and resorted to building new dump valves, but never quite solved the problem. Obviously the answer is slow the torque converter down to a speed inside its range.


I’m not entirely sure you’d recognize it; it’s changed a lot. Neither the as-received look nor the current look is original; the latter reflects reflects work done prior to 1995, a struggling effort to keep the engine operational when the organization had virtually no money, but this was its only operational engine. I’m no fan of throwing money at problems, but at the time, even a prudent amount did not exist.

At Stewartstown, our Plymouth with original LeRoi engine is running well, and will start pulling trains again in April! Come on out and take a ride - cab rides are available...

Just a little story as told to me by the Late Edwin Robichaud (former EL&WB employee)... During the years of operation from 1927 through 1933 there were three Plymouths working switching duty on the Madawaska Companies Eagle Lake & West Branch railroad. [s/n 2201 (Madawaska Co.) purchased February 1926, s/n 2206 (Madawaska Co.) purchased February 1926 and s/n 2346 (Great Northern Paper Co.) purchased June 1926]. I am not sure if these had Le Roi engines or not.

All three were Model HL 18 ton machines. The two Madawaska Co. locomotives were shipped to Lac Frontier Quebec than hauled by Lombard tractors nearly 50 miles through the Maine woods to Tramway which is located on the narrow strip of land separating Eagle and Chaimberlain Lakes in the heart of Maine's Allagash region. The Plymouth owned by Great Northern paper was shipped to Greenville, Me. than hauled by Holt tractor over the Golden Road to Chesuncook Lake and finally floated by barge up the lake to the railhead.

In operation one Plymouth was stationed at Umbazooksus Lake to shift cars onto the unloading pier. Another, owned by Great Northern Paper Co., was used to move supplies over the 5 mile stretch between Umbazooksus and Chesuncook Lake. the third locomotive was used at Tramway to spot cars beneath the loading conveyors and move them to the top of grade were they would be set out on a siding ready to be picked-up by the road locomotive.

While the operation was shut down during the winter months, the Plymouth at Tramway would be stored in the engine shed in front of Locomotive No. 2 (ex-NYC 2-8-0 5780).One spring the clerk decided it was time to wake the Plymouth from its winter slumber. Since the battery was dead they hitched a team of horses to it and pulled it up to the top of the grade in the "Big Cut". The idea being to get it rolling and jump start it. Well... there he went rolling down the grade clashing and mashing the gears to no avail. Eventually common sense over came pride and he leaped off just before the locomotive smashed in the engine house door. Little damage was done other than bending a bit of pride.

At the end of the 1933 operating season all three Plymouths were moved out of the woods and were used by Great Northern Paper to shift cars around their mill in Millinocket, ME. Eventually two were converted to Diesel and the third sacrificed for parts. One survives today in a private collection.

Feb/March 1926 Plymouth at Tramway after being hauled overland 50 miles from Lac Frontier, Quebec by Lombard tractor.



At Tramway circa 1926-1933


Tramway - shifting pulp cars.


Best regards,

Terry

From the original post;

"Does anyone here know of any Le Roi engines that may be available?"

I believe the New York Museum of Transportation near Rush New York has a railroad track speeder car with a 5 cylinder Le Roi engine. It was restored partially at one time (believe it has a cracked cylinder head ? but not sure about that). The 5th cylinder was for an air compressor. Probably too small for your loco. I doubt they would part with it, but if you have a trolley car to trade they might return your phone call.

There is a Plymouth BL2 (circa 1919) nearby with it's original 4 cylinder Buda engine and friction drive transmission. It was operational at one time after a long restoration effort.

The Plymouth BL2 model was from the 1915-1925 era, a bit older than your model, and quite a bit smaller (6-7 tons). Miracle that it survived actually, it was rotting away for decades in the "back lot" of a rust belt factory. There where several trees growing up through it when it was "recovered". A few volunteers with lots of effort and their own funds brought it back to life. After the restoration it was one of the oldest operational internal combustion powered railroad locomotives in existence.

That was a real hoot to operate, the transmission was right there exposed "in your face" a big spinning disk, shafts, wheels and a mighty big finger mashing chain running over exposed sprockets just inches away from the controls. Yikes, OSHA and the FRA would have multiple strokes if they saw that baby operating on a railroad today.

And to top it all off the original gasoline tank was right up at eye level, IN THE CAB about a foot in front of the operators face. This design predated the availability of inexpensive reliable fuel pumps so the designers used gravity (still reliable to this day by most accounts) and located the fuel tank drain above the carburetor inlet.

That bit of "original fabric" was changed during the restoration. The original fuel tank was left as a non-functioning artifact and a modern safe gasoline tank with electric fuel pump was securely "stashed" inside the frame as far away from the operator as possible and out of sight externally.

Here are some details: http://www.rgvrrm.org/about/railroad/pl ... /index.htm

It's coming up on 100 years old...

You might (a really BIG "might") be able to patch a hole in the side of an original engine block with the "Lock-and-Stitch" (tm) product line. Maybe get some cast iron sheets and cut them to size and stitch them into the opening. It is a lot of effort, but that product does work well when applied correctly. Do not even consider welding a cast iron engine block, it is very difficult and well beyond the abilities of most railroad museums.

Good luck, KevinK.

Several places on the net list your Plymouth as model MLC. If this is the case it was built as a diesel mechanical with a Cummins engine. If it was built with a Le Roi engine it would be a ML-6. It is also mentioned on the net that your loco was built in 1938. There are no MLCs listed as built in 1938. Albion is also not listed anywhere in the Plymouth records.

I made a slight mistake. Model MLC was built with a Caterpillar engine not Cummins. According to the catalog this was a 180 hp D17000 engine with eight 5 3/4 x 8 inch cylinders.

That Plymouth with a D17000? Would be pure awesome. And SMRS has some familiarity with D17000s. I wonder if a D17000 coexisted with the Twin Disc.

Yeah we have a few D17000 laying around in various states of decomposition. I wonder what they did when they shoehorned those engines into the converted D-9s for a clutch..

The "C" in Plymouth models MLC (4 wheel) and WLC (6 wheel) does indeed stand for Caterpillar. As the torque converter didn't begin to enter the loco drive picture until the 1940s, any older MLC or WLC models would have been built with hand shifted gearboxes of Plymouth's own design. The transmission itself in the larger locos weighed 6600 lbs, and when you manipulated the shifter on those things you KNEW there were REAL GEARS on the other end of the lever. PLW built a number of different versions of this transmission for loco as small as 5 tons.

The common Cat engine for the 30 ton and up models was the D17000 V8 although some smaller locos used the D11000 6 cyl. in-line engine.

PLW did a fair amount of business in the 1950s and 60s converting these older models to later engines and transmissions.

Cast frame Plymouths do not have the builder's number stamped anywhere on the frame. However welded frame locos from the 1940s on generally will have the b/n stamped on the rear bumper, either on the rear surface above the coupler pocked or occasionally on the top surface. There may also be a date stamped. If so, that is the date the frame was welded, not the final construction date of the loco. Look for a four digit number stamped about 3/4" or 1" high.

The loco is definitely a cast frame. It is said to weigh 35 tons and was built according to legend in 1938. It was not equipped with a sand dome as it is today.

Plymouth is cast into the side of the frame very roughly I might add.

Here are all of the Model ML Plymouths built in 1937. I will send 38 & 39 later.

3892 2/9/1937 Std ML6-2 LeRoi RXIS 127hp B 30T G/M
Phoenix Engineering Corp, Polson, Mont.
East Jordan & Southern #ML-1, East Jordan, Mich - 1941
Hyman-Michaels (D), Chicago, Ill - 10/1961
Duluth Iron & Metal Co, Duluth, Minn.

3899 3/19/1937 Std MLC-2 Caterpillar D17000 190hp B 25T D/M
H J Kaiser Paving #305 > #3701, Radum, Calif.

3908 4/13/1937 36” ML8-2 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 35T G/M
Bethlehem Steel #24, Lehigh Division, Bethlehem, Pa.

3912 4/22/1937 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 35T G/M
American Car & Foundry Co, Milton, Pa
American Car & Foundry, Berwick, Pa.
Marshall Ry Equipment (D) / Birmingham Rail & Loco (D) joint account
Cabot Carbon Co, Gainesville, Fla - 6/1962

3918 5/10/1937 36” MLC-2 Caterpillar D17000 190hp B 30T D/M
Bethlehem Steel #25, Lehigh Division, Bethlehem, Pa.
Bethlehem Steel, Franklin Works, Johnstown, Pa

3924 6/7/1937 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 35T G/M
Gould Coupler Co “Suzy Q”, Depew, N. Y.
Dresser Industries #2, DePew, N.Y.

3927 6/16/1937 Std ML6-3 LeRoi RXIS 127hp B 30T G/M
Narragansett Pier RR #30, Peace Dale, R I
Burned in enginehouse fire - 2/1963

3930 7/1/1937 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 35T G/M
American Car & Foundry Co, Madison, Ill.

3940 9/20/1937 Std MLC-2 Caterpillar D17000 190hp B 30T D/M
E I DuPont de Nemours & Co, North Baton Rouge, La.
Ethyl Corp, Baton Rouge, La.

3942 9/24/1937 Std ML6-3 LeRoi RXIS 127hp B 20T D/M
US Navy, Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Ill.
Renumbered #65-00295 circa. 1949-1950
Illinois Alloy By-Products #5, Chicago, Ill.
Dixie Portland Flour Mills #401, Chicago, Ill.
Chrome Crankshaft (D), Chicago, Ill - 5/1982
National Railway Equipment (D)

3943 10/13/1937 Std MLC-2 Caterpillar D17000 190hp B 25T D/M
Bonne Terre Farming & Cattle Co
– for –
Mine LaMotte Corp, Mine LaMotte, Mo.
Richmond Cedar Works, Norfolk, Va - 1953


3947 11/11/1937 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 127hp B 35T D/M
New York State Railways #L-2, Rochester, N Y
Rochester Transit Co, Rochester, N Y
New York Museum of Transportation #L-2, Rush, N Y
Display

Plymouth Model ML 1938 & 39.

3957 3/7/1938 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 30T G/M
Maine Central RR #2, Waterville, Maine
Maine Central RR #2, Lewiston, Maine
South Portland Shipyard, South Portland, Maine - 1942
L Alpren Co. (D), Portland, Maine

3963 5/17/1938 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 30T G/M
Boston & Maine RR #101, Keene, N.H.
Narragansett Pier RR #33 - 1941
Warwick Ry #103 - 2/1959
Rebuilt Continental R-6856
Returned to Plymouth for rebuilding - 4/1960
Armstrong Cork #4, Millville, N J - 4/21/1960
Kerr Glass Manufacturing #4, Millville, N J

3965 7/26/1938 Std ML6-2 LeRoi RXIS 127hp B 25T D/M
The Mead Corp #100, Lynchburg, Va
Rebuilt Caterpillar D326 160hp
Rock-Tenn Co, Lynchburg, Va

3978 11/25/1938 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 250hp B 35T G/M
Standard Slag Co. #25, Steubenville, Ohio
Koehring Co., Bantam Division #101 > #A64, Waverley, Iowa - 1965
Mid-Iowa Co-Op, Bayard, Iowa.
Farmers Co-Op #19804, Bayard, Iowa
Northland Cooperative #19804, Britt, Iowa.

3984 12/19/1939 Std ML6-3 LeRoi RXIS 127hp B 25T G/M
Stewartstown RR #6 “Little Mo”, Stewartstown, Pa
Wolfeboro RR #8, Wolfeboro, N H - 8/1972
Tony Turgen (D), Tilton, N.H.
Old Colony & Newpiort RR, Newport, R I - 10/1979

3987 4/17/1939 Std MLC--3 Caterpillar D17000 190hp B 35T D/M
Detroit Harbor Terminals #17, Detroit, Mich.
Nezperce RR #12, Nezperce, Idaho - 1956

3995 10/21/1939 Std ML8-3 LeRoi RXIV 127hp B 35T D/M
Carnegie-Illinois Stel Corp
– for –
US Naval Ordnance Plant, South Charleston, W.Va.;
Renumbered to USN #65-00227 circa 1949-1950
Kanawha Central #1:2nd , Knickerbocker, W Va - 12/1954
John B.Harris Coal #1939, Belburn, W. Va.
Durbin & Greenbrier Valley #39, Durbin, W. Va.