Nostalgia & History > Oldest Operating Plymouth Locomotive?

An obscure little 3' gauge Plymouth at the South Pacific Coast R.R. re-creation at Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont, CA may be one candidate. The #4 is a 7-ton chain drive critter built in 1922 for Old Mission Cement in San Juan Bautista, CA (Plymouth model DL2, serial #1363). The unit is operational and serves as back up power to the railroad's usual horse drawn operations; I observed her in service last Labor Day weekend 2005. Can anyone name any other active Plymouths, either narrow or standard gauge, of similar vintage?

Second shot illustrates that Ardenwood really is a Plymouth "mecca": the much more modern #1, an 8-ton model with a hydraulic transmission, pulls into the Ardenwood station with a two car deadhead passenger run from Deer Park. The one-spot was filling in on this day for the equine power due to wet and muddy conditions.

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The Niles Canyon Railway has a Plymouth JLA that was built in 1929, and is used as the shop switcher. It still has its original 4 cylinder Climax gasoline engine and drive-train. It runs whenever there is switching to do near the shop.

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shed47 Wrote:

> Can anyone name any other active Plymouths,
> either narrow or standard gauge, of similar
> vintage?

Jay Reed maintains a list of preserved critters that includes nearly 200 preserved Plymouths:

http://www.sonic.net/~jayreed/preserved.html

Most have builders numbers higher than Ardenwood's DL, but there are a handful of AL-series beasts with three digit builders numbers. Don't know if any are operational.

Thanks for the link, Evan, I've bookmarked the site. It's gratifying to see so many preserved critters, even if only a minority are serviceable. Looks like that Chemins de fer des Chanteraines in Paris is worth a side trip between riding TGV's......

With four operational Plymouths at Ardenwood, Niles Canyon and Roaring Camp the Bay Area seems well represented. RC&BT #40(14-ton model DDT built 1958) is seen in a couple of shots in Felton last month.

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shed47 Wrote:

> Thanks for the link, Evan, I've bookmarked the
> site. It's gratifying to see so many preserved
> critters, even if only a minority are serviceable.

I think part of it is that they don't take up much real estate and can easily be loaded on a truck for movement to museums or display sites. In terms of preserved railroad-size locomotives, you'll also find that switchers vastly outnumber road engines.

> RC&BT #40(14-ton model DDT)

Yikes! Hope there aren't any eagles nesting in the Felton area...

I'll have to check, but Railtown has a Plymouth that is believed to have come from the Hetch Hetchy RR during construction of the dam, so it may be too 'new'. The original air compressor and engine are long gone having been repowered at some point with a Chrysler V8. It still uses the original chain drive, is operational and used mainly for shop duties.

Not the prettiest thing, but a runner!!


SV



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/10 13:02 by SandingValve.

The Pacific Coast Narrow-Gauge Railroad (Santa Margarita, CA) currently has two more modern Plymouth gas-hydraulics from the Ball Powder Co. near Templeton, CA. One is owned by the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum while the other was purchased after some rebuilding by the RR's general manager. Here's the 594, the museum's locomotive, in front of the Asistencia.

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This engine was a visitor to Ardenwood in Sept. 2002. However I can not locate my notes on it. I think the same collector who owns it owns the steam engine Deanna which was also visiting at the time.

Charlesn

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Either the Plymouth BL at Ryan, CA or the the Plymouth BL at the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum would be considered to be the oldest operating Plymouth Locomotive. The Latter was built in 1920.
 

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