This is your locomotive on drugs… any questions?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=88593
http://parkengines.railfan.net/MA/images/pages/102.html
I won’t even go into the other things such as the goofy pilot and such, but can someone explain to me what on earth is going on with that comically tall stack? I showed this to me 7-year-old niece who knows nothing about trains and asked her if she thought something looked odd. She immediately pointed to the stack and said, “Wow, isn’t that thing too tall for the train?” Out of the mouths of babes…

Any in-service photos of this engine available at its Ohio industry?

I do not know the history of this locomotive, but it looks like someone tried to do an imitation of "The Little Engne That Could" from the book by Watty Piper

I hate to say this, but that stack is NOTHING. You wanna see a stack? There's an 0-6-0 in Tracy, MN that makes the Hubbardston one look dainty by comparison. See below

Hi P51,
Richard Jenkins who put together the ParkEngines website and the Lost Engines of Roanoke told me about this unit one time.
If he Sees this post maybe he will be willing to tell us this story about the Stack that Could...
Andrew Martin

Holy mackeral! That darn stack is about half the size of the boiler!

The locomotive is Soo Line 346, built by Alco in 1915. A little late for a wood burner, I'd say.

The stuff in this thread ain't nuthin'. Have a look at these I found in a book a while back -- and these apparently actually RAN this way!

I spoke briefly with the owner of the flea market in Hubbardston when I was out there photographing the locomotive a few years back. He told me that he added the stack, cowcatcher, box headlight and wood trim around the cab windows when the engine arrived in Hubbardston, to make it more "authentic". He also explained to me that "the reason why the railroads stopped using stacks like that is because they started building bridges over the tracks and the stacks wouldn't clear them". Honestly, sometimes I think people should have to pass some kind of written test before they're allowed to buy a steam locomotive! I haven't been out to see the engine at its new home in Palmer yet, but I'm really hoping that the new owners can be convinced to get rid of that wild west junk. She's a nicely-proportioned little engine otherwise.

The Soo 0-6-0 in Tracy, Minnesota was a similar story. She got her balloon stack and cowcatcher when she was in Rochester, Minnesota, half enclosed in the side of a restaurant along with a couple of old Northern Pacific passenger cars. What's interesting about both of these engines is that presumably those big stacks had to be removed while they were being trucked to their new homes, and then the new owners actually put them back on. Too bad the movers didn't conveniently "lose" them in transit...

I last saw the Soo Line (Koppers Coke) 346 in the 1980s, when it was still half-in, half-out of the Salvation Army store at Rochester, Minnesota. This had once been a depot and later a restaurant, before it failed. An addition to the building left one side of the locomotive outside and the other inside. The huge stack was on it then, for atmosphere. Just one of many misbegotten 1960s ideas that a train would attract restaurant patrons, but of course it allowed the engine to exist today, so that a proper restoration could still be done.

Soo 346 certainly does look ridiculous with the stack and fake pilot, but the other stuff looks a bit interesting. Perhaps a sand tower and a single sheathed wood boxcar. What else is there in Tracy and what is its history? IF the owner removed the stack and "cowcatcher" from 346, it looks as if he might have a fairly decent display.

Les

With a stack that tall, imagine the draft!!!!
It's funny about the smaller stacks because of clearances myth, which is as funny as steam engines have to run the same distance forward and backward, which is why PM 1225 ran trips tender first to a destination, as some "know it all" told me.