I was recently reading about the New York Central’s “Mohawk” #2933, now on display in St. Louis.
According to museum reports, after the locomotive was retired, it was saved from the torch by a group of employees who somehow “Hid” the locomotive in a switching yard for 3(?) years, until the museum acquired it.
My question is how did they manage to keep such a large locomotive hidden from railroad officials? Obviously, it would have dwarfed surrounding rolling stock. What could have been done to disguise it?
In the days before computers - all manner of rail equipment became ‘lost’; either on purpose or through simple human error. Back in the day, there were any number of little used spurs where equipment could be placed and ultimately forgotten when a customer changed the mode of their shipping or went out of business.
There were a lot of cracks in equipment checking and accounting systems in days gone by for pieces of equipment to get lost in the cracks…
I thought she was used in snow melting service? Take this news piece from the June 1960 issue of Trains for example.
New York Central tells Trains that unfortunately Mohawk 2933 “can’t pass her I.C.C. physical (She is a little loose in the flues, among other ailments) and as a result her working days are over.”
I interpret that as saying she was in use until fairly recently but that her life, either for continued snow melting service (Or perhaps as a stationary boiler?) or maybe even as a potential excursion engine now that steam excursions were starting to gain in popularity (There was a bit of hope there, as reported in the April issue that year), were finished.
It sure doesn’t sound like a newspiece for a locomotive that had been kept hidden for years at that point. And there’s a picture later that year of her sitting in Selkirk yard awaiting disposition with the caption saying that she’s “too weary to run again”. Odd comment to make if she had been long since retired and squirreled away until a savior appeared.
NYC steam in NYS ended in 1953, last run anywhere happened in 1956, and what was left was scrapped quickly over the next couple of years. Mohawk 2933, being an older model, probably hadn’t been at the head end of a train since the early 1950’s (Too old for the mainline, too big for light branch lines that sometimes were the last refuge of some real oldies on the NYC). So if they hid her, it must’ve been for the better part of a decade at Selkirk.
Luckily, as reported in the June 1962 issue, the NYC generously donated her to the Museum of Transport (And there’s a picture in the September issue of her on her way there).
“Sentimental employees with a soft spot conspired to hide her from the scrap-happy ‘bean-counter’ accountants until such time as some museum could save her” is a legend that has been espoused about any number of steam locomotives, and even many trolleys, passenger cars, and electric locomotives. Indeed, as I type there is a locomotive or two allegedly being “hidden” for preservation in 2014.
There MAY be an element of truth in a couple of the stories hither and yon, and indeed I have heard two first-hand accounts of trolleys being shuffled from barn to barn in the middle of the night to stay ahead of management. But I have also seen the legend recounted about locomotives that were saved through other means. I am inclined to believe that this story is, in most cases, a fabrication spun by sympathetic railfans wanting to embellish the real-life survival of some “treasures” with a degree of unnecessarily exaggerated romanticism and heroism.
This part of your comment reminded me of an incident that occurred a week or so after the NYC-PRR merger was consummated. A single sheathed wooden boxcar was discovered screened by some trees at the edge of the yard; no one could remember when the switch leading to that spur had been removed. The TM tossed a lighted fusee into the car and promised to fire the first guy who called the fire department. End of problem.
I recall an article by Don Phillips about an abandoned box car left on a spur track for many, many years. The car and it’s contents were sold to a local scrapper and what was inside? Two brand-new Packards.
It wasn’t unusual for a railroad that had “dieselized” to keep a few steam engines in ‘stored serviceable’ status, being held just in case they’re needed because of a sudden uptick in traffic or something. I believe the DMIR had steam engines on the roster in that state until like 1967. It could be the NYC engine was tucked away somewhere ‘stored serviceable’ and stuck around long enough to be preserved.
My favorite misplaced equipment story is the gondola of ‘dirt’ that sat around a yard for a long time, eventually someone used it to help ballast some repaired track. Turned out the ‘dirt’ was in fact a lost car of gold ore.
After the Erie and the Lackawanna merged, an Erie switcher which had been recently painted ERIE just before the merger would be tucked away in a shop building when head brass visited. This way no one would spot it and send it to the paint shop to have the last remnant of the once proud Erie painted over. I believe it was in Marion Ohio.
I don’t think the Mohawk was forgotten on a bit of spurred track, it showed up to the museum on fair condition. Someone had been looking after it, and I do believe there HAD to be someone hiding it.
While other cases may have been exciting bits of lore that were told, there is evidence that the locomotive was truly put away somewhere that it wasn’t planned to be…
It could also be that the locomotive was put in “ready-service” to be used in times of high traffic on the line, but I doubt this…
OMG, this is the same story told when ConRail came about. The ‘old timers’ were upset over the demise of the EL, so a lone EL switcher was kept out of sight and out of mind when ‘management’ came to town. The story goes this SW stuck around well into the ConRail blue era, being called for late night drills.
They weren’t keeping a single aged Mohawk around for years in case there was a traffic boom.
I suspect she was used as a boiler, explaining her longevity. Two uses spring to mind as possibilities; being used to melt snow and ice to clear switches and the like around Selkirk, or being kept up as portable emergency boiler at Selkirk in case something like a shop building somewhere on the system had a major failure with its heating system.
Being kept hidden away is a neat story and occasionally, seems to be true like with the PRR E7 that ended up being preserved as the last of its kind. But it’s easy to be skeptical since almost the exact same story has been told about so many different pieces (A slight variation that is also common is the ruse being discovered and the bean counters ordering what should’ve been a treasured museum piece to be scrapped).
I suspect it’s most likely that when her running days were over and she was sidelined, she had enough flue time left where she was able to enjoy a second career providing useful service of another sort, allowing her to survive long enough to be saved.
Nobody said they did. I said most (all?) railroads that dieselized kept some engines ‘stored serviceable’ for several years after the road had stopped using steam. Some railroads (like the Burlington) did in fact pull stored steam engines out of storage and use them. With a railroad as large as the NYC, they may have had a number kept somewhere, or spread out over several divisions. As noted, it’s quite possible some were used as stationary boilers etc.
BTW according to the OP it was only 3 years. IIRC NYC stopped using steam in 1957, so we’re only talking about going to 1960 or so.
That being said, the hardest part of the story for me is that the NYC tended to sell their engines for scrap very quickly…in fact, I believe they ended up having a power shortage for a time because they had gotten rid of steam before all the diesel replacements had arrived. A big part of the reason no Hudsons or Niagaras were saved was because as soon as they were retired, NYC sold them for scrap to get money to keep the railroad going. They didn’t donate them to parks or cities, they just took the money and ran. It seems hard to believe employees could “hide” an engine for three years in that environment. However, it may be a scrapper held onto the engine for a while - maybe even had employees for their’s delay / “hide” the engine until they could find someone to take it for preservation purposes??
The major reason there was mass scrappings from 1955-1957 with nothing saved for posterity despite the significance of something like the pioneering Hudson and their contribution to the railroad and this nation was upper management. Al Perlman had no use for the thought of preserving steam power. They were a sign of the bad old days of inefficient motive power that weren’t worth memorializing.
And people did suggest that’s why she outlasted all of her more modern sisters on the system. Like I said, that’s not why she survived. And it was me that suggested she stuck around not as a locomotive, but because her boiler could still provide useful alternate service of some sort.
And by the end of steam, the situation was as I stated. On the mainlines were NYC’s most modern power, on the branches and such were more modern 2-8-2’s and such that were more versatile than a 4-8-2 and some real relics from the turn of the century in a few spots with light axle loadings. And steam in New York State, where she had been for quite a number of years by the time she was donated, had came to a definitive end nearly a decade earlier.
The end of steam for this class of Mohawks, the L-2’s from the 1920’s, would’ve been from approximately 1948-1952. Too old and underpowered to survive as long as her more modern sisters on mainline runs, and too large for the branches once locomotives like RS-3’s and GP7’s took the sort of assignments she was best suited for away.
If they thought she had any use as a reserve locomotive, it would’ve been firmly put to rest by 1955 or so (By then, all the infrastructure to support steam in the region around Selkirk would’ve been gone anyways). Yet she remained Central’s property into the 1960’s. I very much doubt that they kept her so well hidden at Selkirk that she outlasted every sister by a half decade.
She had to of been providing useful service for the
I occasionally hear that the reason UP still has two engines lettered CNW is because the Chicago motive power guy is a fan who tries to keep them in the area so they won’t wander down to North Little Rock and get repainted. Don’t know if it’s true.
I’ve heard the same story but I would opine that higher tiers of management may also be looking the other way in regards to renumbering and/or repainting C&NW 8646 and 8710.
5406 would have looked a lot better, and we would be very happy for generations to come, seeing her next to a park bench. Just my two cents from a 20th century point of view.
Thats no C&O 4-8-4 it appears to by a NYC Mohawk 2808 cut exactly in half between the 2nd and 3rd driver set.
Can’t imagine scrapping a steam locomotive in this fashion. Appears to be some kind of estranged modification. Cut is exactly around the boiler and the flues are pulled out entirely intact. Wondring what the story on this photo is?
All steam locomotive scrapping I have seen has been random cutting any size to get in the furnace.
Maybe, given the suits in the photo, this was the last one to come through so it was time to show off some cutting skills? Given what we know of steam, the cut throgh the a solid cast steel frame must have taken days!