"Amboy Illinois Central Depot has a static steam locomotive display on its property, the locomotive sits on unconnected railroad tracks adjacent the Depot. The locomotive is an 0-8-0 steam engine built in 1929 by Baldwin Locomotive Works as a switcher bearing the number 8376. It was originally operated by the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. Switcher #8376 (8376) was retired from service near Detroit, Michigan in 1958 and sold as scrap. The now-defunct Northwestern Steel and Wire company, in Sterling, Illinois, ended up with 8376 and other steam locomotives, and instead of melting them down the company renovated them. The company then used them to replace their aging internal locomotives, used within the steel mill grounds. Thus, 8376 was brought out of storage and recommissioned in 1976 as NS&W #76. When it was christened, NS&W #76 (76) was the last steam locomotive engine to be commissioned for regular freight service in the United States."
My question is as above in the subject line. Does this qualify as a locomotive in freight service?
A locomotive is a self-propelled device, propelled by any form of nergy, that is designed for and capable of moving railroad cars.
The answer to your question is YES. A yard hog is a locomotive. Notice that in the definition, class of service is not mentioned. So, your basic “goat” (yard locomotive) could pull the fanciest varnish. Goats, do in fact, pull commuter trains in regular service, as an example.
The operative word is regular freight service. This usually refers to service on a common carrier railroad and excludes industrial, quarry, saw mill, etc. operations. As such this locomotive would not be considered to be in regular freight service when used by NS&W strictly for in-plant switching.
This is in line with my thinking, Mark. When I first read that paragraph on Wikipedia (and knowing anyone can write/edit those pages) my feeling was that it was written by someone associated with the Amboy depot who was trying to make their locomotive display a bit more special than it really is.
The website for the depot also uses that description, with an addition flagged in red by me:
"This particular locomotive was brought out of storage, restored, and officially re-commissioned in 1976, as NS&W #76, making it the last steam engine to be commissioned for regular freight service (industrial switching) in America.
Closer to the truth, but in my opinion still not accurate. Freight is usually defined as “a shipment of goods carried by a vessel or vehicle by a commercial carrier”. Pushing gons of metal scrap around a yard hardly qualifies, in my book.
THere was a recent item in one of the Forum posts that mentioned the Northwestern Wire Co and it’s locomotive fleet.
The thrust of the topic, as best I remember , was that the owner of NW Wire was a railfan, and for years kept several 0-8-0’s busy in plant service. Well into the 1950’s or 1960’s {not completely sure of the time frame}, but it was well into the era of diesels for mainline, and industrial use. At any rate, the afore said steam locomotives lasted much longer than ‘their expected time in service.’ When the owner of NWW died, it was very shortly thereafter his demise that the steam locos were replaced by locomotives powered by Rudolph’s Diesel invention…
Semantics! If the steam engines were used to move cars between the C&NW and loading/unloading spots in the plant they were part of the movement “in regular freight service”.
The part that is no longer true is “last”. The youngest locomotives on the Iowa Interstate are the pair of steam babies acquired from China. The have been used to pull some “regular” frieght trains so it would seem the torch (or the fire in the boiler) has been passed.
Anyway, I am not going to the wall or start a flame war on this one.[:D]
The definition of a locomotive is as I stated above. Class of Service is what you are talking about, and the design of the locomotive in question usually has a lot to do with the assigned class of service.
A yard goat can be assigned to road service. The Milwaukee Road did that a lot West of Aberdeen. They used SW-1200’s a in Western Montana for their “Patrols”.
Any locomotive can pull any train, by definition. Locomotives assigned to yard service likely would not pull, say a passenger train, except in yard operations. And, locomotives assigned to passenger trains likely would not engage in switching operations.
So, a goat can pull varnish and a passenger locomotive can do switching - but these would be operations outside their assigned class of service and would rarely be done.
Like Jay wrote - semantics. … … well, mostly, sort-a.
I can remember the photo article in TRAINS in 1968 or 1969 that brought Northwestern Steel and Wire to the attention of the railfan community. NS&W had bought the locomotives for scrap and kept the better ones in service to switch the mill. The article mentioned that they had tried using a diesel but it didn’t hold up. The article mentioned that although the mill was not particularly scenic, it did provide an excellent example of working steam.
Since NS&W was dependent on cannibalization to keep its steam switchers going, I would suspect that the SW1001’s were purchased because the usable steam parts ran out.
Yard Service/Main line service–with steam, any engine was capable of service in either arena, but might lack the specific qualities for the other than normal assigned duties…Had the opportunity to watch Steve Lee work the 3985 at Lenox Station at the end of UP trackage in Memphis [former NC&StL- now CSX]. He he had to switch the equipment car and the steam generator car around and out of the passenger equipment so they would be in position when needed for repairs on the smoke box- forced draft nozzle- of 3985,also to fill the water cars in preparation for their run on CSX. Was really something to watch, as that large an engine manovered the required switching moves!
The beauty of the diesel was its interchangeability from use to use, although they might lack specific features, visibility, handling qualities, and such.
AS Jay said, semantics, as well as operational characteristics…