I remember reading somewhere that the B&O had a power shortage in the mid to late 50's that caused them to bring back some steam locomotives out of retirement. Does anybody else remember this story and know anything about it?
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Yes, there was an upturn in traffic in, I think, late 1956 and into 1957. I don't recall the details but it was something like Russian wheat shipments that caused a few eastern roads to fire up some steam locomotives that had been mothballed but not removed from the roster. Notably the Pennsy and the B&O.
As I come across more information, I'll add it here. Some of the other contributors may have a better recollection but there definitely was a brief resurrection for some steam.
Ed
Thanks Ed.
I was 2 years old in 1957 and lived with my grandparents in Grant Town, WV. The coal mines in this area were served by the B&O. I swear I remember seeing a steam locomotive pulling a train at about that time. I've been wondering for years whether or not I was imagining it.
My dad filmed some B&O steam still running at the W. 3rd. St. yard in Cleveland in the fall of 1957.
In Al Stauffer's B&O Power there is a photo of a steam powered fan trip from Cleveland to Holloway on May 17, 1958 and the caption notes that this was the last run of steam on the B&O*. I'm about the same age, arriving from the builder in 1956!
[edit] *In an issue of the B&O Historical Society (2Q-2008) magazine there was an article about this trip and it provided further information that there were "pockets" of steam engines operating through 1958 and that the Holloway trip was the last mainline run of steam.
In the 50's, a lot of railroads had not fully dieselized. Modern steam with 'flue time' was put into service during the late summer grain rush in the midwest. Around 1958 there was a recession, and dieselization was basically complete. A lot of those steamers never came out of storage.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
At the end of 1956, B&O knew they would dieselize soon. They had to handle the traffic to and from the Lake Erie ports during the 1957 shipping season, but the road had enough diesels on order to handle the anticipated needs for the summer of 1958.
As of New Years Day, 1957, all steam engines were renumbered with 3-digit numbers and all diesels got 4-digit numbers.
In the summer of 1957, there was a daily ore train that came out of Cleveland, joining the main line in Akron to go east. It generally left Cleveland with two or three 400-series Q-4 Mikados, picked up Q-4 helpers at Akron Junction, and blasted their way up to Cuyahoga Falls, where the grade leveled out enough to release the helpers. I remember swimming at Water Works Park in Cuyahoga Falls one afternoon and looking up to see 3 Q-4's struggling up that grade after they'd dropped their helper(s), with smoke plumes reaching to heaven. I was 11.
EM-1 2-8-8-4's worked from Benwood, WV to Lorain Ohio and on the Lake Branch in '57.
2-8-2's, 4-8-2's, and 2-10-2's worked the mainline and parts of the Toledo Division in '57.
True, there was some B&O steam working in '58; but '57 was, for all practical purposes, the end.
Tom
P.S. At first, I mistyped that last line. Before I corrected it, I said '57 was the emd. Was that a Freudian slip?
Tom,
Don't forget the EM-1s working the Lake branch from deforest Jct. to Fairport Harbor. Classic Trains had a feature by Jim Shaughnessy back in Winter 2012 and the CT website featured additional photos. Great B&O action! I took photos in 1982 when the track was being ripped up.
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/m/bo-lake-branch/default.aspx
I ride my bike on that trail now and I can't get the thought out of my mind when I'm on that hallowed ground of what it must have been like when those beasts, frequently two on the head end and one pushing, were hammering up to the summit in Chardon. In '55 or '56 there was a fan trip with an EM-1 that ran from Cleveland to Akron Jct. then on to Deforest and up to Chardon for the Maple Festival. Sadly, nothing like that will ever be possible again...