Steam & Excursion > Was This The Ultimate "Barn Find" Steam Locomotive Ever Found?

We all can only dream that we get so lucky as to find one of these still resting away in a dusty dry enginehouse out on the desert just waiting to be found and restored.

This was a dream come true in 1937 when Gil Kneiss was scouting around the west looking for old railroad equipment for notation to the newly formed Pacific Coast Chapter of  The Railway Locomotive & Hi stoical Society.  His wanderings brought him to Battle Mountain, Nevada, home of the Nevada Central Railroad on tips that they still had some classic old narrow gauge motive power and rolling stock and were just about to file for abandonment.  This is just one of his finds when he first arrived.

By the next year, 1938 the line had indeed been granted abandonment and the ancient equipment was offered for both sale and for donation. Seen here in this fine Ted Wurm photo taken in June 1938 is Nevada Central #2.  This classic Baldwin 2-6-0 had been built new for the NC in 1881 and was still intact and operable.  While Kneiss and his group could not get donations of all the old equipment, they knew that NC #2 was too historic to let go to scrap.  Word reached Southern California railfan Gerald Best about the little mogul and he told his friend Ward Kimball who immediately traveled to Battle Mountain to inspect and then buy #2.

Kimbal trucked #2 to his property in San Gabriel, CA and it became the first piece of rolling stock for his Grizzly Flats RR that entertained his friends for many years.  Finally in 1992 Ward and his wife Betty donated #2 and his Grizzly Flats rolling stock to the Orange Empire Ry Museum where they reside today.

Who among us would not still dream of the chance to open up the doors to an old abandoned enginehouse our on the desert and find one of these?

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/15 04:43 by LoggerHogger.

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Some years ago I read a story in a Walt Disney biography that when Disney was short on motive power after opening Disneyland that Walt tried to sell Ward on the idea of renting the engine for use on the Disneyland Railroad.  The stipulation was Walt was going to require his team to convert it to oil. Ward did not like the idea and the engine never made it to Disneyland.

 

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

There are many sad stories of "the ones that got away", but there are a few stories like this too. That makes the few that were saved even more precious. Thanks for sharing.

I got to see that engine at Ward's home on a visit years ago...classic!
As was Ward Kimball...
 

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Interesting to see an old link-and-pin link inserted where the knuckle should be in the automatic coupler. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/15 16:33 by Evan_Werkema.

That is a great photo and the locomotive still has its front number plate, builder's plate(s)?, and all of its other hardware.  What a find!!  If you came across that today, it would be totally stripped and painted with graffiti.

Ron

Back in 1992, I was at work one Sunday and my future wife went out to look at open houses for sale in the San Gabriel area.  I had recently moved into house and it just wasn't big enough for two book lovers, one of whom is a railfan and record collector.  When I got home that afternoon, she announced, "I think I've found a house for us.  It has plenty of room and it's on a dead-end street.  But there's one strange thing--down at the end of the street there's a fence, and on the other side of the fence, there's a railroad yard."  And I told her, "You've found WardkimballLand!"  I explained the Grizzly Flats story and how one of the locomotives was still usable.  In the following years, every now and then we'd hear Chloe's whistle and know that there was railroad action in the neighborhood.  Finally, the Kimballs realized that it was time to make sure their collection had a good new home, and they endowed the present day 3-foot gauge section of Orange Empire.  Although neither of the Grizzly Flats steamers is operable at this time, OERM does have a gasoline fueled "critter" that is used to move the 3-foot gauge exhibits around, making it one of the few museums in the world that operates on three different gauges: 3-foot, 42" for LARy and a few other streetcars, and standard for everything else.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> Interesting to see an old link-and-pin link
> inserted where the knuckle should be in the
> automatic coupler. 


Pretty standard on railroads that had to use both kinds of equipment. Take the knuckle out, put the link in.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Here she is in '06 at OERM. Sorry for the wide wedge, very tight quarters in there at the time.

As with the Chloe, Ward back-dated it quite a bit to give it an old west sort of feel.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/15 23:21 by Harlock.

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webmaster Wrote:
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> Some years ago I read a story in a Walt Disney
> biography that when Disney was short on motive
> power after opening Disneyland that Walt tried to
> sell Ward on the idea of renting the engine for
> use on the Disneyland Railroad.  The stipulation
> was Walt was going to require his team to convert
> it to oil. Ward did not like the idea and the
> engine never made it to Disneyland.

Walt also wanted Ward's depot back to use in Frontierland. It was a set piece from the Disney film, "So Dear to my Heart". But ward had taken the three sided shell, enclosed it and build a proper roof and furnished it with an interior - an enormous amount of work. There was no way ward was going to give that up without compensation. They built the station that is there today instead, on the opposite side of the tracks from the boarding area.

Ward's station is now owned by John Lasseter.

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Harlock Wrote:
> Evan_Werkema Wrote:

> > Interesting to see an old link-and-pin link
> > inserted where the knuckle should be in the
> > automatic coupler. 
>
> Pretty standard on railroads that had to use both
> kinds of equipment. Take the knuckle out, put the
> link in.

Right, there were even knuckles with slots in them so a link could be used without removing the knuckle...but how often do you actually come across a picture showing it?

Interurban electric railways used slotted knuckles and extension links to move freight cars around tight "streetcar" curves in cities.

The "Ultimate Barn Find" is a small Heisler - still in original factor paint, in a barn "shed" somewhere down south (Louisiana?).  Also a Vauclain Compound 3-foot gauge 2-8-0 from the Klondike Mines RR was found in a similar situation.