A recent subject was “ugly locos” and this loco was posted, and it was pretty scary, but also a strange looking thing, I can’t find any more information on this engine, does anyone have any information on this beast?? I’m pretty sure there are no HO models of this( you never know)
They were built right afetr WW2. One existed in Peoria Illinois up until very recently. Really don’t know of one owned by a railroad. i believe most were industrial usage. They really weren’t that ugly in person. Sort of a Ge 44ton on steroids.
I have a photo of one entrained in a SF freight on Cajon Pass. Industrial users and the military were the primary market… Burlington had a Witcomb center cab 0-8-0 switcher, pug ugly…one of the few class one uses.
Dave
There is a Whitcomb center cab at the railroad park in Rochelle IL. It is a fairly recent addition to the displays there and is in good condition, newly painted. This is a chance to take close up detail photos. You cannot climb on it of course but it is not fenced in
Dave Nelson
I believe the model you’re describing is the 44DE-18. It’s truly a “fugly” switcher.
I have a hard copy photo here, I need to get online someday. sorry.
ABout 18 years ago, I walked into a local hobby shop where the owner, who I knew, was talking to another customer. After introductions, the customer offered me an 80 ton Whitcomb centre-cab. For free! And not a model one either! It turned out the guy worked for a local steel plant (actually the main competitor to the one where I worked) and I had been one of the subjects of their conversation before I came in. The steel plant considered the loco to be surplus and was willing to donate it to anyone willing to move it. There was no prime mover and the traction motors may or may not have been removed, I don’t recall. Anyway, the store owner knew that I owned a small fruit farm and would have the room for it and he also knew that I was crazy enough to take it. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that local zoning bylaws specifically prohibited freight cars, cabooses, or locomotives to be stored on agricultural land. To be quite honest, in some way I was relieved by this news: realistically, I didn’t have the resources to move it, let alone restore or maintain it. However, it was FREE! i couldn’t just walk away from it. I learned that the locomotive was an
ex-U.S. army unit and that the donors were willing to make it moveable by rail. I called someone I knew at the local railway’s loco shop and was told that I could rent short-term storage space at a very reasonable rate. I also got a quote to move the hulk the 5 or 6 miles from the steel plant to the storage. This would require more than I could really afford (BIG mortgage on the farm), but I could do it with a short-term loan. The final part of my plan was to call Steamtown, which at that time was still in Vermont. I thought, naively perhaps, that if I offered them the loco for nothing other than the costs involved to get it to them, that they would jump at the chance. The steel plant would make it suitable for interchange, I’d pay to store it while the details were worked out, and Steamtown would pay the transportation costs. The loco could
Pages 166 through 181 of “Critters, Dinkys & Centercabs” by Jay Reed. Google
Jay Reed, then select “The Comprehensive Guide to Industrial Locomotives.” to go
to his web site. You can order direct or probably through your LHS. (Where I got my
copy. It also covers many other brands of small locomotives as well.
docwayne,incredible story, that close to owning a strange beast eh? this is what legends are made of, was this loco located outside the u.s.??(duty free?) I hope to see more interest in this large behemoth and hope to see more photos of it soon.
The locomotive in the story was at a steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario. Unfortunately, the only photographs that I have of it are very poor quality and I doubt that they would be of any use here.
Wayne