Steam & Excursion > A Time Honored Tradition

Best guess this is one of 77 4-4-2's delivered to the Chicago & Northwestern by Schenectady starting in 1900, the year this image was supposedly made. Unfortunately, there was no location provided.
Photo credit Detroit Photographic Company and the Library of Congress
Be of good cheer,
—Mac
www.lowellamrine.com

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Nice, is that Choo-Choo Charlie filling his engine up with Good & Plenty candy? :>)

JG

The roundhouse engine wipers did a great job cleaning and polishing the locomotive. Cotton waste wetted with kerosene or light oil was the tool, plus lots of elbow grease.

Note the tapered rectangular funnel under the smokebox. Drain chutes with gate valves are faintly visible attached to the bottom of the smokebox. Goal was to minimize handling cinders and ash by letting them drain out, intead of shoveling them out the smokebox door.  I suspect this didn't work as well as planned. Probably clogged often.

- Doug Debs



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/26 12:07 by DWDebs/2472.

Did you notice the guy behind the water crane looking like he is wielding a cane throwing some sort of hissy fit ?

Beautiful image of a beautiful locomotive.

How strange to the the C&NW's left-handed running.
Bob

refarkas Wrote:
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> How strange to the the C&NW's left-handed
> running.
> Bob

But, do you know WHY the C&NW used left-hand running?

A tweak tweak here, a tweak tweak there...

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HotWater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> refarkas Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How strange to the the C&NW's left-handed
> > running.
> > Bob
>
> But, do you know WHY the C&NW used left-hand
> running?

The story I heard is that it had to do with the commuting folks who when arriving at the station to wait for their train needed shelter before it arrived, but when they came home and got off they simply headed home with no need for shelter or accomodations. When CNW was single track that was not a problem. But when they had to double-track, the depots occupied the north side, so the new track was built on the vacant south side. This created an issue as with right hand running, the depots would be set up to discharge passengers directly to the station side .... the station and platform they had no use for on the westbound run away from Chicago. So instead of trying to rearrange the entire railroad and facilities, they simply resorted to left hand running so the commuters going east to Chicago had the depot facilities to accomodate them during the wait time, and the returning commuters who didn't require any facilities didn't have them to get in their way. So that is why things were "backwards" ... but the locomotives were still all right hand side set up. I don't know if this is folklore or BS ... but what I've been told several times over the years and at least think I remember correctly.

What's the real answer ?

train1275 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> HotWater Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > refarkas Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > How strange to the the C&NW's left-handed
> > > running.
> > > Bob
> >
> > But, do you know WHY the C&NW used left-hand
> > running?
>
> The story I heard is that it had to do with the
> commuting folks who when arriving at the station
> to wait for their train needed shelter before it
> arrived, but when they came home and got off they
> simply headed home with no need for shelter or
> accomodations. When CNW was single track that was
> not a problem. But when they had to double-track,
> the depots occupied the north side, so the new
> track was built on the vacant south side. This
> created an issue as with right hand running, the
> depots would be set up to discharge passengers
> directly to the station side .... the station and
> platform they had no use for on the westbound run
> away from Chicago. So instead of trying to
> rearrange the entire railroad and facilities, they
> simply resorted to left hand running so the
> commuters going east to Chicago had the depot
> facilities to accomodate them during the wait
> time, and the returning commuters who didn't
> require any facilities didn't have them to get in
> their way. So that is why things were "backwards"
> ... but the locomotives were still all right hand
> side set up. I don't know if this is folklore or
> BS ... but what I've been told several times over
> the years and at least think I remember
> correctly.
>
> What's the real answer ?

Your explanation is indeed correct! Thus, that is "the real answer".