Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

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INGE
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Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:49 pm

Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by INGE »

Here are a few photos furnished by Bill and Lee Nelson taken at Casey O'Neil's highline track in Lake City , MN, which was located on the Mississippi. The mustache guy with the red/green plantation loco is Bob Darr, one of the founders of the St. Croix RR. The photos are likely from the 1970"s, as evidenced by the Northern loco which seems to be sporting "Freedom Train" colors. When this highline was dismantled in the 90's, a couple of St. Croix members procured the track for the St. Croix. The original St. Croix track had wood beams, which were likely rotting, so they replaced them with the steel trusses from Casey's track. The original St. Croix track was fabricated from 1" channels with spacing such that it provided rails for 1-1/4", 2-1/2", 3-1/2", and 4-3/4". When the wood beams were removed and the steel trusses put in place, which only had 3-1/2" and 4-3/4" gauges, the original St. Croix track was laid directly on top of it to keep all the gauges. This is as it exists today. There were excess trusses which were donated to a club in Iowa. The St. Croix highline sees a fair amount of use with 3-1/2" and 4-3/4" locomotives. I have yet to see a 2-1/2" loco run there, so if you have one , please bring it. St. Croix also added 2 outside rails to the highline which will accommodate 5" gauge locos, and 7-1/2" riding cars. We continue to wonder where some of these locos ended up.
darr1 lake cty.png
darr2 lake cty.png
darr4 lake cty.png
darr5 lake cty.png
darr3 lake cty.png
Andy R
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Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:18 pm
Location: So. Calif.

Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by Andy R »

It's too bad that that track is so far away!
jcbrock
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Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:50 pm
Location: Oregon

Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by jcbrock »

Thanks for posting those Jeff, real Midwest live steam history. I wish I'd spent more time with Richard Winkle when I first moved to Rochester, he had a bunch of photos too and I don't know what happened to them now.

Andy, you just need to get out more, but maybe not at $6 a gallon. Dave Gumz used to come 2x a year from GGLS so it has to be worth at least one trip. BTW I was at LALS Saturday, there wasn't a lot to be seen on the small scale bays. Is Sunday or Monday a better day to attend?
John Brock
Mike Walsh
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Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by Mike Walsh »

The John Woods estate (ATT&NW) had a 2-1/2" gauge live steam engine that was a mantlepiece. One of the steam gurus there determined that it would not run again without extensive work. Little did I know until it sold at auction that it was a LE locomotive until after the auction.

Unfortunately someone beat me to the punch to the opening bid of $500, and I did not want to go a penny over, so off it went to another fellow. Maybe that fellow is on here?

I would have liked to restore that little thing. I think it might have been fun.
Pontiacguy1
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Location: Tennessee, USA

Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

The LE 2 1/2" gauge 1/2" scale steamers can be very interesting. They seem to be the most commonly found 2 1/2" gauge stuff, on this continent anyway. I've seen several of them built, or partially built, and they can be anything from a thrown-together absolute hash of a locomotive, all the way to a well built and nice looking example of passenger/fast freight power. I don't think one would be as nice as the Coventry Pacific or some of the Yankee Shop stuff, but there sure seem to be a fair amount of them that have been started over the decades.
Trainsplanesandautos
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Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by Trainsplanesandautos »

I have a 2 1/2 LE Hudson that is partially complete. Many parts sill in Little Engines boxes.plan to complete one day, but time and too many projects may not get to it. It appears that some of the parts were machined by LE did they sell machined kits?
Andy R
Posts: 441
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:18 pm
Location: So. Calif.

1/2", 3/4" and 1" live steam

Post by Andy R »

John,

I'm sorry that we didn't meet at LALS on Saturday. Maybe we did talk without knowing it?

The meet attendance was a lot lower than past years. I estimated that there were fewer than 1/2 the attendees than at previous LALS spring meets. The general consensus was that folks were (a) afraid of covid, or (b) not desiring of spending $6 for gasoline. LALS does put on a nice meet anyway.

In past years we have seen on the Saturday of the meet all of the steaming bays full, with multiple locos on some.
This year there were almost none on the two turntable-serviced bays. I brought my latest and put it on the small-scale steaming bays: the big-boiler Virginia, but did not run it.

There were enough live steamers to talk too: Jim Kreider, Dave Weis, John McKnight, Duane Simpson, Richard Ronne, Doug Maywald, James Grzesiak (who has a 2.5-in gauge loco), and a few others. Dave Lazarus ran his Pennsylvania 2-10-0. Howard Gorin drove all the way from Massachusetts and had boxes and boxes of parts. Oskar Frye "ran the wheels off" the 3.5-inch gauge 0-4-0 that i gave him a few years ago. And Jay Leno drove in with another steam car.

Maybe next year it will be "back to normal." And yes, the road trip to the east is in the plan.
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8thscale
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Re: 1/2", 3/4" and 1" live steam

Post by 8thscale »

Andy R wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:24 pm Jay Leno drove in with another steam car.
Not sure this was a steam car?
https://www.motorauthority.com/news/112 ... o-s-garage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOACRzMDN1k
It has the very distinctive "(wings down) goose hood ornament"!

Had a great time out, we did our best to help polish the rails!
Dave

Apologies as I'm drifting this thread ...
Andy R
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Location: So. Calif.

not a steam car after all

Post by Andy R »

John, You are correct.
It was the 1922 Wills Sainte Claire
IMG_4301.jpg
mattmason
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Location: Sacramento, CA

Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by mattmason »

I know I did not got to LALS this year due to the cost of fuel. Needed to save my pennies for the Carson City steamup. I wanted to go and had everything prepped in January, but diesel is just too darn much.

St Croix is worth the drive at least once. I've been three times and can't wait to get back. Its a neat highline as well. A little scary taking my Iron Pony geeps at some spots, but just had to do it once.
Matt Mason
INGE
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Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by INGE »

Regarding the SCRR Highline, all the footings are now concrete, and the track is level and secure with hand rails on the trestle. Makes for a much more comfortable ride.
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ChipsAhoy
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Re: Historic 1" live steam 1970's southern MN

Post by ChipsAhoy »

Andy R wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 6:33 pm It's too bad that that track is so far away!
Long ago, and far far away, we used to have a Manager, Alan Firman, who lived in England and flew back and forth to shift work with us.
He had an observation, it went...
"In England, we think of 500 miles as a long ways away,
In the USA, they think of 500 years as a long time ago".

Scotty
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