EX BR&P locomotives.....

Anyone have pics or information on the EX BR&P locomotives that the B&O aquired when they took over the line in 1932? When were the last ones retired, I dont believe there are any survivors besides the 0-6-0 in Ohio (?)

Quite a few BR&P steamers made it onto the B&O roster, although many were retired within a couple of years after the takeover. The tabulation below shows full BR&P number blocks, but in many cases some (or most) locos were gone before transfer to B&O.

0-6-0:
BR&P 152-156 to B&O 390-394, then 1190-1194, scrapped 1951-53
0-8-0:
BR&P 520-37 to B&O 772-789. Most retired 1954-55. B&O 772, 776,and 778 ended up renumbered 895-897 and were retired in 1958. These three were among the last B&O steamers to be retired.
2-8-0:
BR&P 250-269, 300-328 -- only 9 to B&O; all retired in 1933
BR&P 270-274 to B&O 3084-3087, scrap 1933
BR&P 275-284 to B&O 3088-3096, scrap 1933-34
BR&P 329-384 to B&O 3025-3069.. Many retired 1933; others lasted to 1948-49.
BR&P 385-396 to B&O 3070-3080. Most retired 1933-34; 3077-79 rt. 1947-48
2-10-0:
BR&P 501-508 to B&O 6500-07, retired 1948-50
2-8-2:
BR&P 400-447 to B&O 4700-4747, retired 1950-53
2-6-6-2:
BR&P 700-754 to B&O 7500-7554, retired 1949-52
2-8-8-2:
BR&P 800-8808 to B&O 7316-24, retired 1950-51
4-4-2:
BR&P 165-167 to B&O 1489-91, retired 1934-35
BR&P 170-174 to B&O 1492-96, retired 1934-36
4-6-2:
BR&P 600-616 to B&O 5140-92, most retired 1950-53
BR&P 675-679 to B&O 5260-64, retired 1952

Balto,
thanks for the BR&P list! (above)

Where did that data come from?
is it in a B&O book?

and while we are on the topic, does anyone know of any other data sources for BR&P to B&O info?
I have the Paul Pietrak BR&P book,
and there is also some B&O data here:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/bo_steam1.html

anything else??

Im going to put togather an "All-time BR&P roster"..
I will post it here when im done..
I can already tell there will be some conflicting data that will need to be straightened out..

thanks,
Scot

scottychaos wrote:Balto,
thanks for the BR&P list! (above)

Where did that data come from?
is it in a B&O book?

It came from William D. Edson's "Steam Locomotives of the Baltimore & Ohio - All-Time Roster", self-published by Edson in 1992. Bill was the country's premier locomotive roster guy, and knew his stuff well. This is pretty much the bible of B&O steam power, and also covers all the major acquired lines from their beginnings. The book lists each individual locomotive, and also includes diagrams of many classes. Bill died several years ago, unfortunately, and the book itself went out of print fairly quickly. In checking it on Google, though, it looks like there are a lot of used copies out there.

What I quoted was a summary of what he had listed as going to the B&O, but he covers the BR&P (and B&S, if you care) with the same locomotive-by-locomotive detail (on pp. 96-116), starting with the "Rochester #1" in 1873, including many diagrams. If you can buy or borrow a copy, you may have most, or perhaps all, of your work done for you.

My Uncle who lives in Cleveland Ohio and grew up in a small coal mining town of Adrian Mines said to me that you have to remember that the BR&P never hauled freight.
Although they did haul freight for their company stores and they also had some sort of passenger service. Although the trolley which serviced the area around Punxsutawney - the Jefferson Traction Company probably went out of business in the 1920's and most trolleys were burned or scrapped when the modern bus came along.
The same is true with the steam locomotive.
Because the locomotive was used to haul coal, it was taken care of very well, but when the diesel electric locomotives came along, it was not economically feasible to keep up shops such as Altoona or Dubois or Salamanca and it was cheaper for them to run them into the ground and take them out of service and replace them with the newer diesel engines then to try to maintain the infrastructure needed for steam engines. Places such as Cloe Lake was still off limits to the public, even in the 1960's. Even though the locomotives were not in service, the railroad still owned the property and did not allow people on their property, even for the purpose of recreational fishing and camping and hiking.

As I explained to a local weatherperson - Joe Murgo of WTAJ. The reason why most towns along the line in the state of Pennsylvania were not more then 27 miles apart was due to the fact that - that was the distance that a locomotive could go on one tank of water. Most towns that were along a grade were 20 miles or less apart. When you went to a diesel, you could travel as far as you wanted on one tank of fuel and you did not have to stop until the end of the shift or until you got to your destination.

The coal tracks below my house were still there in the early 70's, until such a time as when the BR&P felt that they were not coming back. Then they tore them out and sold the rail to the Kovalchick Corporation and the right of ways were sold in the 80's to anyone that wanted to buy them. Kolvalchick's also got a lot of the right of ways in the deal when the tracks were removed.

Since many of the towns and mines were also purchased by the Kolvalchicks, it stands to reason that some of the engines that were in the possession of the B&O - also went to the Kolcalchicks and went to the scrap yards where they were cut into little pieces and sent to the steel mills to be processed into new steel.

The downfall of the BR&P railroad on paper was that it did not haul freight.

Since there was many paper railroads in the US back then, it also stands to reason that although the name changed to the B&O, the principal owners of the railroad was still the same people who owned the BR&P. If there was a profit to be made, they would have switched the name back to the BR&P faster then you could say Mississippi.

By the 1950's, when the price of coal was low enough that it was not profitable to mine it by hand, most operators went to the strip mine operation of mining coal, where they could remove it more cheaply with machinery then by hand and then with no reclamation laws on the books, they could just leave and it didn't cost them a dime to reclaim the land. Then when the government came out with the laws to reclaim the land, the coal operators were paid a second time to go back and reclaim the land and strip the coal a second time for free.

With coal being able to be moved easier by coal truck then by train, the day of the railroad came to a quick end. I can remember the B&O and Chessie System with new vehicles on railroad cars when I was a kid attending school in Punxsutawney at the junior high which was directly across from the train station in the middle of the town. The same holds true with that. When was the last time you saw new automobiles being hauled with the G&W or the B&P railroad?

B&O grandson wrote:My Uncle who lives in Cleveland Ohio and grew up in a small coal mining town of Adrian Mines said to me that you have to remember that the BR&P never hauled freight.
Although they did haul freight for their company stores and they also had some sort of passenger service. Although the trolley which serviced the area around Punxsutawney - the Jefferson Traction Company probably went out of business in the 1920's and most trolleys were burned or scrapped when the modern bus came along.
The same is true with the steam locomotive.
Because the locomotive was used to haul coal, it was taken care of very well, but when the diesel electric locomotives came along, it was not economically feasible to keep up shops such as Altoona or Dubois or Salamanca and it was cheaper for them to run them into the ground and take them out of service and replace them with the newer diesel engines then to try to maintain the infrastructure needed for steam engines. Places such as Cloe Lake was still off limits to the public, even in the 1960's. Even though the locomotives were not in service, the railroad still owned the property and did not allow people on their property, even for the purpose of recreational fishing and camping and hiking.

As I explained to a local weatherperson - Joe Murgo of WTAJ. The reason why most towns along the line in the state of Pennsylvania were not more then 27 miles apart was due to the fact that - that was the distance that a locomotive could go on one tank of water. Most towns that were along a grade were 20 miles or less apart. When you went to a diesel, you could travel as far as you wanted on one tank of fuel and you did not have to stop until the end of the shift or until you got to your destination.

The coal tracks below my house were still there in the early 70's, until such a time as when the BR&P felt that they were not coming back. Then they tore them out and sold the rail to the Kovalchick Corporation and the right of ways were sold in the 80's to anyone that wanted to buy them. Kolvalchick's also got a lot of the right of ways in the deal when the tracks were removed.

Since many of the towns and mines were also purchased by the Kolvalchicks, it stands to reason that some of the engines that were in the possession of the B&O - also went to the Kolcalchicks and went to the scrap yards where they were cut into little pieces and sent to the steel mills to be processed into new steel.

The downfall of the BR&P railroad on paper was that it did not haul freight.

Since there was many paper railroads in the US back then, it also stands to reason that although the name changed to the B&O, the principal owners of the railroad was still the same people who owned the BR&P. If there was a profit to be made, they would have switched the name back to the BR&P faster then you could say Mississippi.

By the 1950's, when the price of coal was low enough that it was not profitable to mine it by hand, most operators went to the strip mine operation of mining coal, where they could remove it more cheaply with machinery then by hand and then with no reclamation laws on the books, they could just leave and it didn't cost them a dime to reclaim the land. Then when the government came out with the laws to reclaim the land, the coal operators were paid a second time to go back and reclaim the land and strip the coal a second time for free.

With coal being able to be moved easier by coal truck then by train, the day of the railroad came to a quick end. I can remember the B&O and Chessie System with new vehicles on railroad cars when I was a kid attending school in Punxsutawney at the junior high which was directly across from the train station in the middle of the town. The same holds true with that. When was the last time you saw new automobiles being hauled with the G&W or the B&P railroad?

Hi Grandson,
welcome to the forum!
im sorry, but you have quite a bit of incorrect information there!

Yes, the BR&P hauled "freight"..quite a lot of it..
I think you mean that it only hauled coal, and not any "non-coal" freight..but that is simply not true.
yes, the BR&P hauled a lot of coal, but it certaintly hauled other freight too..
there was a lot of industrial activity in its three namesake cities..it hauled lots of freight.

As I explained to a local weatherperson - Joe Murgo of WTAJ. The reason why most towns along the line in the state of Pennsylvania were not more then 27 miles apart was due to the fact that - that was the distance that a locomotive could go on one tank of water.

interesting theory!
I have never heard that before..
but also basically not true..
because most towns existed before the railroad arrived..
the placement of towns is more a factor of geography..rivers, waterfalls, intersections of major roads..
most towns and cities already existed before the railroads..
Railroad routes were more dependant on the location of towns, than town locations were dependant on the railroads..

It is true that some towns became much *bigger* after a railroad arrived!
some towns grew into cities because of a railroad..
and yes, a few towns were created directly because of a railroad..
and it might be true that some small towns came about because of the location of a railroad "water stop"..
but in a general sense it is not at all accurate to say "The reason why most towns along the line in the state of Pennsylvania were not more then 27 miles apart was due to the fact that - that was the distance that a locomotive could go on one tank of water."..thats a myth.

The downfall of the BR&P railroad on paper was that it did not haul freight.

not really..it hauled lots of freight.
The BR&P ceased to exist ion 1932 because the B&O bought it..
and at that time, it was still very much a viabale rail line..still hauling lots of coal and other freight.

Since there was many paper railroads in the US back then, it also stands to reason that although the name changed to the B&O, the principal owners of the railroad was still the same people who owned the BR&P. If there was a profit to be made, they would have switched the name back to the BR&P faster then you could say Mississippi.

you are a little confused on names..
the B&O was a MUCH larger railroad than the tiny BR&P..
there is no reason the B&O would have considered "switching the name back" to BR&P..
once a larger railroad absorbed a smaller one, no one ever considered changing the name back..for any reason.
im not sure what switching the name back would do?
your statement is a little confusing..

The Ex-BR&P was slowly downgraded by the B&O through the 1940's - 1970's..
you are right that the main downfall of the line was the decrease in coal business..
along with many other coal-hauling routes..
so yes, coal was a major factor..but not the only factor.
Today much of the BR&P is still in use! although on a much smaller scale than in the past..

Scot

Well Scott, I would invite you to read the history of Jefferson County Pennsylvania.
It was written by a man that started out hauling the mail and small packages along a trail that went from Brookville to Brockway to Ridgeway and back to Brockway and then back to Brookville.
It was kind of like the pony express in it's day.
When Jefferson county was founded, it was 4 or more times the size of what it is today. Several other counties were made out of this one big county. Yes the towns of a proportionate size were already here. But that was only due to the fact that a town needed water power to grind it's grains to make flour. Flour mills were built along streams and rivers where they could control the flow of the water and provide for the local residents. At one time, the Town of Punxsutawney had as many residents in it as did Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.
If you read about the history of Jefferson County, you will read about how they described the place, as desolate, where everything had to either be made right on the spot or hauled in by hand - which was very expensive to do.
The railroads were not built to improve the lives of the people living in the communities, it was built to get the raw materials out of that area as quickly as possible.
Places like Adrian, Walston, Kramer, Helevatia, Rossiter were all bought and paid for with railroad money and their only reason for existence was to start a town where the coal could be mined as cheaply as possible, put on a train, hauled to a final destination, offloaded and sold at a profit. As in the TV show Bonanza - the man who owns the land makes the rules.
Railroads runs on two things, grades and schedules. As the grade gets steeper - it takes more energy to move the load. As the grade gets steeper, it takes longer for the train to climb the grade. The further away from the raw materials you get, the more it costs to haul it. The more it costs to haul it, the less profits you can make if you are the person / company producing it. Iselins were no dummies. They knew to hire the Polish people and the Italians and the Slovaks and keep them in competition with each other. They hired people who could not speak English so they could not band together and strike. They used the threat of bringing in black people if you were not willing to work for what they were willing to pay.
As the cheap coal ran out, they moved the towns closer and closer to the steel mills.
The Adrian Mines never produced less then one million tons in a year and even in the height of the depression they mined one and a half million tons of coal a year. Now you figure this, the most hours in a week that my grandfather got back then was maybe 24. The miners were so desperate for work and money that they mined just as much coal in 20 hours as they did 10 years later in 40. Frick was only interested in the coal, not how much it cost to haul it.
The steel mills paid you for the coal, it was your job to get it there. That was the reason why the little towns sprung up from Homer City PA to Export. Either to mine the coal or to make it into coke for production and export to the steel mills. It took a ton and one half of coal to make one ton of coke.
Home heating fuel - which was primarily coal until about 1940 was bought and sold the same way oil is today. When home heating oil came along and the people who lived in the cities did not want to be bothered paying someone to fire a furnace and did not want to be bothered cleaning a boiler or coal furnace everyday, switched to oil for their heating needs. The price of coal fell as did the demand and the market collapsed. If it was not for the invention of electricity, which burned large amounts of coal - there would be very few coal mines around today. The electricity produced today in Pennsylvania does not stay in Pennsylvania. It goes to New York and New Jersey and the cities where it is not popular for the people to be breathing in large amounts of pollution and where they do not want to be bothered by coal trains and all the dust and dirt.
As far as the water situation goes, it was told to me that they had it all figured out - how far the train could go. You could haul as much coal as you wanted. The water had to be provided for the train along the way. Why do you think that Kyle Lake was built? Cloe Lake etc etc..
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
Look sometime at the roster of who owned and were members of The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club? Do you know that not a single lawsuit came to trial in the deaths of over 2200 people who died as a result of the dam bursting and the flooding that wiped out the city of Johnstown PA in 1889.
Dupont built a powder mill right on the site of where Rykers Yard stands today and it went for a mile in every direction. Right up to the front door of the mine in Robertsville - I believe that they called it the Onondaga. When the BR&P wanted something , they didn't just pay for it, if it cost to much to buy, they produced it themselves. If competition moved in, they bought them out. That was how business was done 100 or more years ago.

well we both probably have aspects of our stories that are right and wrong!
history is certaintly not neat and tidy!

Places like Adrian, Walston, Kramer, Helevatia, Rossiter were all bought and paid for with railroad money

Kramer PA??
huh..never heard of that one before!
Is it still there? has the name changed perhaps?
I just googled it, and cant find anything..

Im curious about that name!
because I have some Kremer ancestors that are from Northern PA..
I am in the midst of some serious Kremer genealogy work:

http://gold.mylargescale.com/scottychao ... REMER.html

they are more from the Scranton area, from what I know so far..but still..
what do you know about Kramer PA?

Welcome aboard "grandson"!
sounds like you know a lot about your local history,
nice to have a knowledgable new member here..

Scot

http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry. ... ramer.html

You might enjoy to read this - http://users.penn.com/~mweimer/history.html

Stump Creek:

Was originally called Kramer, because this town was built on what was originally the farm of George Kramer which he purchased in 1862. Mr. Kramer was also a lumberman who rafted logs down the Mahoning Creek and then onto Pittsburgh via the Allegheny River. At the time of his death, he was the school director and the township supervisor. In 1899 his widow sold the land to a mining company and a mining town was built. The mine shaft was dug at the current site of Gruda Metals who now operates a very large scrap metals operation. The company store was on Rt.119 where a tavern now sits. Many company houses were built in the 1920's. When the post office was established (date not given) the name was changed to Stump Creek after the little stream that runs through the lands of the George Kramer farm.