I was doing a little reading this morning. Does any one have any information about an M4 working on the D&RGW Tennessee Pass in the winter of 1943 - 44? That would make a interesting addition to my current layout.
Mike.
I don’t recall the exact model of engine mentioned, but I have a video copied from RFD-TV about the Tennessee Pass line that does show what might be a former DM&IR large articulated steam engine used during WWII when the U.S. Government was running the railroads and allocating motive power.
The title of the show was “The Royal Gorge Route” and was produced by Spinnaker Home Video Productions.
It wasn’t ‘former’, it was brand new !! The DM&IR leased at least one (and I think actually a couple) of their new 2-8-8-4’s to the D&RGW during the winter months during the war. Remember the Missabe was a seasonal railroad, once Lake Superior froze over the ore boats couldn’t reach Duluth or Two Harbors, so mine production and much of the DMIR railroad operation shut down. The Missabe leased the engines out to make a little money and (more importantly) help the war effort. Otherwise the big mallets would have sat idle for several months.
I believe both Frank King’s “Missabe Road” and “Locomotives of the Missabe Road” books have a pic of a DMIR yellowstone operating in CO in them.
The US govt didn’t operate the RRs in WWII, it was in WWI. The War Production Board did alocate manufacturing capacity (EMD/GM builds all frt diesels, WP must use SP GS-6 plans for thier 4-8-4, etc). Many roads swapped, leased or sold surplus engines to those who were short of power. B&M Berkshires to SP and ASTSF, N&W Mountains and 2-8-8-2s to D&RGW and ATSF respectively, etc., for example
I checked the Frank King books again, he says that the last order of 10 2-8-8-4’s all were sent by the War Production Board to the DRGW since they were completed too late to get to the DMIR during the ore season. He mentions that the DMIR also leased loco’s in the winters during the war to the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific. Interestingly, there is a pic of a Yellowstone doubleheading with a Rio Grande 4-8-2; during the Korean War the Missabe operated a Rio Grande 4-8-2 (still wearing DRGW lettering) for a year (I think 1952)that they ‘intercepted’ on it’s way east to be sold to the Wheeling and Lake Erie.
BTW, King notes that his dad (who was a DMIR official at the time) told him that the Rio Grande wrote the Missabe telling them that the M4 Yellowstones were the finest locomotives ever to run on the DRGW.