We (myself and Alexander D Mitchell IV) are researching the history of the railway products manufactured by C W Hunt of Staten Island between c1880 and c1920. One of the things in their range were something that was marketed as the Industrial Railway system. This was a modular system designed for use in steel mills, foundries, power stations, mills etc which Hunt could supply as a complete system - track, cars and locomotives. The oddity about the system was that all the rolling stock had outside flanged wheels and ran on 21.5 in gauge track. It had been designed to run on curves as tight as 12ft radius without problems. The system appears to have been a success based on the number they sold all over the USA and beyond. The locomotives that Hunt produced were among some of the earliest electric locos produced but they also built at least one steam loco and a couple of internal combustion locos. A good overview of their output can be
seen here (along with a much better explanation of the way the outside flange system worked than I can put in a few words).
Hunt died in 1911 and his his company became part of another material handling company, who were not interested in the railway part of it, in 1920. It seems that new systems were no longer installed after this date. However there were enough of the systems in place for other builders to be supplying locomotives for them right up until 1976 when Plymouth built a new Hunt Gauge (as the 21.5in gauge system seems to have been widely known across the railway industry) for Bethlehem Steel Co.From the start of the 20th century HK Porter, Baldwin, Plymouth, Whitcomb, Davenport, Rogers and Atlas all built Hunt Gauge locos, mostly diesel, gas and electric powered but Porter built a few steam
We are in search of any information that anyone may have about any Hunt system that they may have come across. I think that we have more or less exhausted what is available online. We are after anything at all that anyone may have about any of the systems that used Hunt Gauge locos. Any sliver of information, however small and seemingly insignificant would be useful. Photos would be nice but sightings, sources of information in books, reports, accounts or any other sort of documentation, oral histories, references in archives - literally anything. The things about the Hunt Gauge systems is that there is a good chance that people do not even know what they are looking is that - we are pretty certain that unless you knew exactly what you were looking at was a Hunt Gauge system it would be very easy to assume that you were looking at a standard 20in or 24in gauge system. The thing about them is that industrial railways are in themselves an esoteric and much ignored subject so trying to find something about an even more obscure subset of them is challenging.
To assist you in this search I will now give a brief list of places that are known to have been supplied with locomotives of a Hunt Gauge (* were Hunt built locos and $ denotes the site had Hunt and non Hunt built locos). This is not a complete list of Hunt's Industrial Railway systems, which is much more exhaustive.
Ajax Coal Co, Fayette WV; Armour Fertilizer Works Agricola FL, Chrome NJ, Montgomery AL & Columbia SC; Arnold Print Works, North Adams MA; Baltimore Copper Smelting & Rolling Co/ASARCO, Canton, Baltimore MD; Bethlehem Steel Co, Steeltown, PA; Bridgeport Malleable Iron Co; Buffalo Bolt Co, North Tonawanda NY $; Central Illinois Light Co, Peoria IL; Comm Of Water Works; Crucible Steel Co, Atha Works, Harrison NJ; Stanley G Flagg, Philadelphia PA $; Grand Rapids Gas Light Co, Grand Rapids MI; Imperial Oil Co, Sarnia, Ontario Canada*; Kimberley Diamond Mines, South Africa; Mechanical Rubber Co, Bombay, India; Mount Morgan Gold Mine, Australia*; Northern Berkshire Gas Co; NYSS Co (unknown where this was but shown as a Gas Producer in Hunt’s catalogue)*; Ohio Edison Co; Orford Copper Co, Constable Hook NJ*; Phelps Dodge Corp, Laurel Hill NY; Planters Fertiliser & Phosphate Co, Charleston SC; Public Service Electric Co, Newark NJ; Revere Copper & Brass Co, Baltimore MD; Siemens-Schuckert-Werke, Berlin, Germany; Singer Manufacturing Co, Elizabethport NJ*; Tadakuma (probably Japan); Unknown company, Stowe PA; US Army, Ordnance Department, Edgewood Arsenal; Westinghouse Air Brake Co, Wilmerding PA $; xxx Brooke Iron Co (probably E&G Brooke, Bridsboro PA)*
I started out this search to write an article for the journal of the UK Industrial Railway Society, which will certainly get written.However the more information that I find, the more I think there is something bigger required. Anything that anyone can add would be greatly received.
Cheers
Simon Darvill
