Nostalgia & History > Switcher Saturday: SFe shop goat

I recently scanned three 5x7 size Kodak boxes crammed full of 5x7 prints. LOTS of interesting steam stuff to see! Most of the prints were taken by Gibson friends and trader contacts. But a few were by Bill Gibson himself. And it looks like Bill -aka WAG Sr- had a pet favorite engine he would shoot whenever he visited Argentine, just an hour down the road from his home base of Topeka. There were 5 total prints of AT&SF 2414 which Bill labeled as “shop goat”. The image below is the earliest of the group. By February of 1941 this little 0-8-0 had been rebuilt into a slightly longer 2-8-0. I’ll run the remaining 4 images through Photoshop for posting in the coming days...

1. AT&SF shop goat 2414 at Argentine, KS in March of 1932.
B/W 5x7 print by William A. Gibson (WAG) Sr. Now in the James T. Wilson collection.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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This engine was the subject of a 56-page softcover written by Richard Scholz and Larry Brasher entitled Santa Fe Locomotive 132: a Q-125 Remembrance of the "Cyrus K. Holiday".  It was built by Baldwin as a 2-8-0 numbered 132 in 1880, part of the 14-member 2404-class.  Its builder's photo is here:

https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/312168/page/1

The engine was renumbered 912 in the 1898 renumbering, 2414 in the 1900 renumbering, and by 1907 had been reassigned from road to switching service.  Some time prior to 1928, the pilot truck was removed, turning her into an 0-8-0 with a pronounced "overbite."  The tender shown in Gibson's photo was its second, applied about 1900.  Around 1935, it traded that square tank for a second-hand turtleback tender originally assigned to 0-6-0 #2132.  The 2414 was pulled out of service on October 16, 1939 with a cracked cylinder and a firebox that was in "poor" condition, in need of an estimated $8500 in repairs.  It was formally retired on October 31, 1939, but thankfully the story didn't end there.  John Purcell, head of Santa Fe's mechanical department, ordered the locomotive retained for exhibition purposes, and it was subsequently restored to operating condition and "backdated" with a balloon stack, box headlight, wooden pilot, and a replacement pilot truck turning it back into a 2-8-0.  The engine was rolled out in February 1941, still numbered 2414 but definitely looking better than it did as a shop goat. 

https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/51553/page/1
https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/51545

The engine got its original number 132 back in March 1941, and the tender soon got additional sheetmetal added to the rear that turned it into an older-looking (but huge) rectangular tank.  In 1950, the locomotive was rechristened yet again as Santa Fe #1 with the name Cyrus K. Holliday (the railroads' first president and also the name of the original Santa Fe #1, a 4-4-0). 

https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/208405/page/1

The engine had a successful exhibition career, under her own power until 1958 and then as a static piece until 1975, lasting with the railroad long enough to pose next to a bicentennial-painted SD45-2:

https://cdn2.picryl.com/photo/1976/01/19/santa-fe-steam-and-diesel-locomotives-1976-644b30-640.JPG

The engine was donated to the Kansas State Historical Society in 1978 and today resides inside the Kansas History Museum in Topeka, restored as much as possible to her as-built appearance as #132 with an appropriate-sized tender:

https://www.rgusrail.com/ksatsf132.html

The photo below from 1939 from the Southern California Railway Museum collection is credited to Wesley Krambeck.  Gibson took a very similar photo that appears on page 365 of Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/24 19:28 by Evan_Werkema.

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As usual, your information retrieval is superb! :^)

Evan_Werkema Wrote: > ... The engine got its original number 132 back in March 1941, and ... the locomotive was rechristened yet again as Santa Fe #1 with the name Cyrus K. Holliday ...

That part I wouldn't have known at all. But on the other hand it's not surprising. Anyway, it looks like I'd better accelerate my Photoshop "schedule" and get the other 4 images edited!! :^)

Lance

My what an overbite!
Go

Her beauty was in what she could do and not her looks.
Bob

#1 - Here the C.K. Holiday #1 was nearing her last trip from display at Dodge City, KS to Topeka.
#2 - An earlier time when live and running.

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rrman6 Wrote:

> #1 - Here the C.K. Holiday #1 was nearing her last trip from display at Dodge City, KS to Topeka.

According to Scholz's book, the engine's last display in Dodge was a centennial celebration on July 21, 1972.

IN 1966 or '67, I happened to be at the Pauline depot when the Emporia-Topeka local pulled up and stopped for paperwork, #1 and it's train were being towed back from some event behind the caboose. I got invited up to ride the cab on down to Topeka with the Trainmaster. The agent, Bill Hestand, called my mom and told her I'd be later for dinner. I got to ride back to Pauline a couple of hours later on one of the old FM's that were on that train almost every day. They were struggling up the grade from Topeka and didn't really want to stop, so I said thanks, and dropped off on the fly. 

It's final move off home rails in Topeka! 
They constructed a ramp up to a low boy trailer for movement via highway and city streets to the new Kansas Museum of History.
Photo by Ron Dean

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Jerry Poe in the tan jacket. He was a Freight Carman at Topeka, then a Car Foreman, and I think he rose up a little further by the time of the photo.