Can anyone help me? I have a locomotive I purchased a few years ago that the seller claims was given to him by John Allen. Normally I would say this is a joke but he provided information that bolsters his claim, also he sold me the loco (0-4-0T ) before he mentioned the John Allen link. Does anyone know of a way to prove this loco came from John Allen? Does anyone know of a list of his locos? The seller claimed he was in the group that salvaged the layout after the fire and he retrieved this little engine in a cardboard box from under the benchwork. He also claims a Mr. Andy Sperandeo knows him and could help substatiate the claim. Any and all help greatly appreciated!
All the info I have is third hand. I have to say the legend of John Allen looms large.
I met the late Allan Fenton at the 2000 NMRA Convention in San Jose. He was a regular operator on G&D. I would suggest talking with him but he passed away a couple of years ago. I believe there are several others who were in that group who are still with us. I bet Andy knows who they are. Andy Sperando was an operator there for a year or two.
There was also a gentleman who did a clinic on the G&D at the 2000 convention. Look in the old convention intinerary to find his name. He was an operator there as well.
On the claim of salvaged G&D locos: The guy at the clinic had photos of the basement taken after the fire. I looked at them. The basement and the layout appeared to be burned beyond reconition. It is possible stuff might have survived, but looking at the photos it seems very unlikely that very much of it did. I think there is a part of in all of us John Allen fans that wants it to be true that stuff survived. There is also some discussion of the topic in Linn Wescott’s book on G&D.
If you have access to some old MR’s from the late 40’s through 72, you can find several several pictures of John Allen’s layouts. Also, the book Guy mentions above has many pictures. You might be able to find your loco in one - if indeed it came from JA. Over the years there have been some cars and maybe some locos produced with G&D markings. NMRA’s Heritage line of frieght cars started with a G&D boxcar in all the popular scales. I have the S scale one running on my layout.
Enjoy
Paul
One has to be very careful today regarding fakes, no matter how honestly they seem to be presented by a seller. There is considerable fakery of “rare” items in the Lionel collector’s market and there are probably those in HO who are not above it either. Let’s face it, an undiscovered, authentic, G&D engine would be worth a lot of money to collectors!
As for finding a photo of such a locomotive in print and citing it as documentation of a particular item’s authenticity, I certainly wouldn’t take that as real proof. I assure you that with just a little effort and my ALPS printer I could fake any of the simpler G&D locomotives (i.e. an 0-4-0 switcher) right down to aging it and matching herald decals, given a reference photo to work from. While John extensively modified his larger locomotives to make them unique, I seem to recall that many of his switchers were more or less “out-of-the-box” save for the herald.
My advice is to seriously question this engine’s authenticity.
As I should have indicated in my previous post, your most promising path to perhaps defining any authenticity to the locomotive in your hands is indeed to contact Andy S. and see if he can shed some definite light on both the gentleman (seller) in question and this locomotive in particular. The next necessary step would be to obtain clear written authentication (with an explanation why this engine didn’t come to light much earlier) from both these individuals or very few guys are going to accept the claim.
As I recall, for a long time only one G&D road locomotive was known to have survived (that one was in the Kalmbach offices at the time of the fire I think). Recently I heard another had surfaced in private hands and it did seem to have a reasonable provenance. However, with more than thirty years elapsed since the fire it’s getting highly unlikely that further examples will surface. Good luck with any search you attempt.
There’s only one surviving G&D locomotive that I’m aware of, 4-10-0 no. 34 that’s sitting in a case in Andy’s office.
John had two 0-4-0Ts. The first was a Varney Dockside, and it figured prominently in his early photos. John also had an 0-4-0T built by Sakura, an early Japanese brass manufacturer. It’s possible that this latter model survived the fire. Is it made of brass, or does it have ‘Sakura’ somewhere on it? It would be numbered “10” on the G&D.
The only other possibility would be the “missing” DG&H locomotive, stolen from the G&D by a visitor sometime in the fifties–it was an HOn3 0-4-0T–I think it resembled a Porter tank engine. That locomotive might still be floating around out there somewhere…
A 4-10-0? That is probably the biggest on the Railroad. I do not recall any pictures. Would it be ok to ask Mr. Andy to provide a photo? I am curious to see this survivor.
I recall that the fire was pretty destructive from most accounts. I recommend being very careful and try to have the surviving members of John Allen’s Operating Group attempt to identify the locomotive in question. Perhaps as a group they can agree or reject this engine as a “Genuine Article”
I have loved John Allen’s work in books and MR. But I must doubt the truth of the seller’s alledged story of retriving the model from under the bench work. Fire has a tendancy to gather along undersides of structures like tables, roofs, and ceilings before attacking upwards. The heat involved must have been hellish in that room.
Not only must the temperature in the layout room have reached quite a high level (of course, it would have been somewhat cooler at floor level under the layout) but a portion of the building’s first floor collapse into the layout room, John having removed some of the joist supports for the first floor to make way for the layout! I do note that the fire did not actually consume the house as it was restored and sold (it still exists to this day) after the fire.
Incidentally, a picture of the surviving G & D 4-10-0 appeared in MR just a few years back in the News section of the magazine. Likewise, it was shown in an early installment of the video series Tracks Ahead, in a segment devoted to John and the G&D. Like John’s other big road engines, it was uniquely modified and super detailed.
My guess is you would have to. If you like the G&D you will enjoy this group, there are lots of old articles and other things. I would copy and post the photo but I’m not sure if that is allowed.
Regarding the Sakura 0-4-0T. Until a few years ago I had a Sakura Dockside, which was virtually identical to the Varney B&O Dockside, being diecast, but having a few lost-wax details (air pump, etc.), handrails and full valve gear. I bought this new in the early 70’s, I believe. I’m sorry now that I sold it!
In the late Linn Wescott’s wonderful book on the G & D he made mention on page 142 of salvaging some items from John Allen’s house a year after the fire. Linn said in his book that they “tried to save the famous French Gulch section, but after two hours of sawing and sweating it collapsed as (they) moved it away from the wall”. He also said that the fire had completely demolished many areas of the railroad, and a few scenes were recognizable but badly charred.
Linn located John’s negatives in the darkroom, “and upstairs were his correspondence files, drawings, and planning notebooks, including the manuscripts of published and future articles.” Linn further added that “John’s color slides (which had been rescued earlier and were the property of Andrew Allen)” made it possible to produce his book about the G & D. (note-Andrew Allen was John’s brother) Almost the entire book was illustrated with John Allen’s photos and drawings.
So it is entirely possible that an engine, especially of metal construction, could have survived a fire. John could have had train stuff scattered all over his house. What if that engine had been upstairs, and not under his benchwork? (Don’t know about the rest of you, but I typically have modelng stuff in just about every room. . .) Perhaps some member of his large operating group may be a link to the origin of your engine. Not sure how many may still be with us since the fire occured 31 years ago: if you need a list of those individuals, post your request here and I’ll reference G & D book for their names.
And another thought – John did the photography for the Varney ads that were on the back cover of MR from 1952-1959. There is a picture of a Varney’s Aerotrain and 0-4-0T Dockside taken on the G & D and reproduced on page 68 of the G & D book. Varney sold thousands of these during the fifties and later. Couldn’t John have had more than one in his stash? Varney could have produced copies
Bill - I’ll agree that all of your proposals are at least marginally possible but most fly in the face of the fact that this supposed G&D engine remained totally unknown and undocumented for three decades. And then when it does surface it is sold, apparently quite cheaply (considering its astronomical collector’s value), to some apparently unknown individual rather than finding its way into something like the NMRA museum, MR’s HQ, or the collection of one of today’s well known modelers. Likewise, how does one make sense of the original poster’s statement that only after the sale it was related that this engine happened to be from the singularly most famous layout in model railroading history? Things just don’t seem to add up for me.
Original poster, could we not see a photo of this engine? It could well answer a lot of questions straight away.
I’m the one posting the pictures of 2-8-4 #43 to the G&D Yahoo group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GandD/).
I have no relation to the person taking the pictures though only did it to help him out and show the pictures to the group.
If you are a John Allen fan I hope to see you in the group as we have many intersting things to show and discuss
including some pictures of salvaged (damaged) rolling stock from the G&D (same source as the #43 pictures).
Rgearding the engine in the original question, why don’t you show us a picture of it?
I actually e-mailed Andy Sperandeo a year ago asking about engine #10 mentioned in the book and as Andy recalled it was
a Dockside also thus there were two Dockside engines on the G&D if he recalls correctly (#9 & #10).
4-10-0 #34 is on many pictures in the book if you have it, seems like it was a favourite of Johns.
Regarding other G&D engines according to the book there was three 2-6-6-2s (not four) numbered 36, 37 & 38.
Number 35 was a 0-6-6-0 (converted from a PFM Sierra 2-6-6-2).
The book mentions a possible 2-10-2 as number 43 but the the above mentioned pictures shows an ATSF Berkshire (2-8-4).
DG&H #1 which was stolen I think the book states as an 0-6-0T and that it was not finished when stolen.
I would be very skeptical about this to say the least. I mean, this is like going out and buying a guitar that was once owned by Elvis. It would now be worth millions. I would think the same thing would hold true with any locomotives that was once owned by John Allen. Hey, ask yourself this. If you had something that was from his railroad collection, and could prove it, what would you sell it for? I read somewhere that talked about the houses that Norm Abram remodeled before he became a television star. They say that now those same houses are worth thousands up and beyond the normal real estate prices all because he was the one that did the remodeling. Let’s face it, John Allen was the Elvis of model railroading. Any model railroading equipment that he owned, one could ask almost any price for and get it… Either the guy you bought it from is lying, or he was totally ignorant of the value of such an item. Which do you think it would most likely be? If it is real, then you got yourself the deal of a lifetime.
Given the attention this post generated on this forum and on the Atlas forum (two pages worth discussing this post), I am curious what are your thoughts on the authenticity of your loco??? I’m sure others are interested as well.
