ALCO 0-4-0 - Winston Co. No. 48

Above, No. 48 at the museum in December 2010.
Photo courtesy www.rgusrail.com.

Interesting facts

No. 48 is typical of small steam locomotives built for light industrial use, but it is also a relatively late example of one equipped with slide valves (the "box" just above the main cylinders on both sides at the front of the locomotive).

Most steam locomotives in the 19th century used slide valves to control the flow of steam into and out of the cylinders but, by the 1920s, they had largely been superseded by piston valves, particularly in engines using superheated steam.

As locomotive boiler and steam pressures increased, slide valves became prone to lifting off their seats wasting high pressure steam. In superheated locomotives, the steam was also drier, with virtually no water droplets as is the case with "saturated" steam and, as a result, little or no lubrication was supplied to the valves by the steam, which could sometimes lead to burnt valve faces.

Below, a closer look at No. 48's valves and running gear. It is equipped with Stephenson inside valve gear

(i.e. inside the main frame). The valve gear controls how much steam passes through the slide valve,

as well as putting the locomotive into reverse. Photo courtesy www.rgusrail.com.

History

No. 48 was built in 1922 at the ALCO-Cooke Works
in Paterson, NJ. The company started producing locomotives in 1852 as Danforth, Cooke & Co., but,
in 1901, merged with the following other small locomotive manufacturers to form the American Locomotive Company:

Brooks Locomotive Works, Dunkirk, NY
Dickson Manufacturing Company, Scranton, PA
Manchester Locomotive Works, Manchester, NH
Pittsburgh Locomotive & Car Works, Pittsburgh, PA
Rhode Island Locomotive Works, Providence, RI
Richmond Locomotive Works, Richmond, VA
Schenectady Locomotive Works, Schenectady, NY

An advertisement for ALCO from Angus Sinclair's "Twentieth Century Locomotives" (1904).
Image courtesy www.rgusrail.com.

ALCO was formed to compete more effectively with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, which was then the largest locomotive manufacturer in the U.S. The new company was headquartered in Schenectady and eventually closed all the other manufacturing sites except for the main plant in Schenectady and its Canadian subsidiary, the Montreal Locomotive Works. From 1852 until it was closed in 1926, nearly 3,000 locomotives were built at the Cooke Works in Paterson.

ALCO became the second largest steam locomotive manufacturer in the U.S. after Baldwin, producing over 75,000 steam locomotives before ceasing production in 1953. Among these were such well known examples as the 4-6-4 (Hudson) and the 4-8-4 (Northern) built for the New York Central, and the 4-6-6-4 (Challenger) and the 4-8-8-4 (Big Boy) built for the Union Pacific. In 1906, the company briefly went into the automobile business before abandoning manufacture in 1913. It also produced the first commercially successful diesel-electric locomotive in 1924 in a consortium with General Electric (electrical equipment) and Ingersoll-Rand (diesel engine).

After purchasing the engine manufacturer, McIntosh & Seymour Diesel in 1929, ALCO began to produce its own diesel engines, although electrical equipment was still provided by GE. During World War II, in addition to steam and diesel locomotive production, the company built marine propulsion diesels, turbine shafts and boilers, tanks, gun carriages and munitions for the Allied war effort, which it continued throughout the Korean War. It then entered the oil production equipment and nuclear power plant markets. ALCO built its last diesel locomotives in January 1969, and left the market on December 31, 1969.

We have three ALCO diesels in our collection: Savannah River Site RS-1 No. 106, NASA S-2 No. 1, and Richmond, Federicksburg & Potomac S-2 No. C (converted to a "slug" in 1967).

No. 48 at the museum in December 2010. Photo courtesy www.rgusrail.com.

No. 48 is a 3 foot gauge 0-4-0 locomotive, meaning it has four driving wheels but no front or rear trucks. It was bought in 1922 by the Winston Company based in Edgefield, SC (the company is believed to be the Winston Arm's company, but this cannot be confirmed).

No. 48 stayed with the Winston Company for 12 years and then, in 1934, it was sold to the Birmingham Rail & Locomotive Co., a used locomotive dealership. The following year, it was bought by
Bona-Allen, Inc., a tannery in Buford, GA.

At a later, unknown date, it was bought by the Georgia Lumber Co., where it was renumbered No. 22, and was then sold to the Western North Carolina Scenic Railroad at Lake Lure, NC. This shortlived operation went bankrupt in 1968 and, the following year, No. 22 was sold to the Daniel Boone Railroad, which ran into the nearby woods and looped back to the front of the Daniel Boone Amusement Park owned by James Freeland in Hillsborough, NC. The ride included cowboys and Indians jumping on to act out a train robbery and gun fight.

Above, Duane Butner standing beside No. 22 when it was working on the
Daniel Boone Railroad. Photo courtesy Duane Butner.

Duane Butner wrote to GCRM and sent us a picture of him as a boy next to
No. 22 when it was working at the Daniel Boone Railroad. He also wrote about the locomotive on another page:

"[T]he lettering on the train was painted by an Apache Indian named “Apache Joe”. He painted most of all of the rides and signs for Mr. Freeland years ago. It was told to me that he also came from Arizona and when Apache Joe was nine years old he witnessed the U.S.Army escorting Geronimo through the reservation when he was a small boy... Once there was an incident when the train engineer Mr. Warren Hall, who has since passed away was driving the train when he forgot to put water in the steam engine boiler. He had to stop the train and the conductor who was a man by the name of Delmar Tudor had to tell everyone to evacuate the train, or as he said “it’s going to blow up!” Needless to say, everyone ran screaming away from the engine. Fortunately the train did not blow up as Mr. Hall stayed with the engine and cooled down the boiler as to prevent the fire department from putting any water on the hot engine. That was just one story I recall about this railroad."

Above, inside No. 48's cab. Photo courtesy www.rgusrail.com.

In 1983, No. 22 was sold to James Wells of Fairfax, VA, and the Daniel Boone Amusement Park is no more. Unfortunately, we don't know much about the locomotive's history after that date. It was donated to the museum by one of our members in 1993.

Details

Status: On display, cosmetically restored, not Operational.
Acquisition Date: 1993.
Built: 1922, ALCO-Cooke, Paterson, New Jersey.
Construction No: 63253.
Fuel: Coal.
Cylinders (diameter x stroke): Two 11 inches x 16 inches.
Working steam pressure: 165 psi.
Tractive effort: 8,900 lbs.
Valve gear: Stephenson.
Engine weight (empty): 42,000 lbs.
Driving wheels: 30½ inches diameter.
Weight on driving wheels: 42,000 lbs.

Click on the following link to order this book detailing how steam locomotives work:

Order How a Steam Locomotive Works Today!

A portion of the sale price of every book purchased
from AMAZON.COM through this link is donated to
the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.