Hello All!
I stumbled upon an interesting historical tidbit when researching some local history. Hopefully someone here as an idea as to what this was.
I own some property near the town of Rosebud, MO. I found a history on the town
here, and there was a very interesting section on a narrow gauge setup a fellow had run from a clay pit up to the Rock Island line in town. From the site:
"Around 1915 a man by the name of John Watkins obtained a lease to mine clay on a farm southeast of Rosebud. He soon realized that a team and wagon would be too slow to haul clay to the Rock Island Railroad in town. He bargained for and bought a miniature railroad of his own. The rails were a mere 34" apart and were laid for more than a mile.
He named his locomotive "Molly Watkins". She pulled the coal car and five cars hauling two tons of clay each travelling at 12 m.p.h. at full throttle. On her maiden voyage a crowd had gathered. After the first load of clay was unloaded Mr. Watkins stood scratching his head. He had just realized there was no place to turn around! So as the pit was mined Molly Watkins made many trips backwards and forwards."
I've got an approximate idea of where the clay pit is, so I can guesstimate where the track might have been laid. But I can't find anything about a locomotive of this size, nor even the track guage. What would be large enough to move the engine & coal car, plus (5) 2-ton cars on a 34in track? Any ideas or thoughts? I'm kind of curious as to whether the locomotive would have been scrapped locally at some point, or if something like that might have gone on living on another track somewhere else after the clay pits were mined out.
Any & all hints or thoughts on this would be appreciated!
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2011 08:57AM by MODiesel.
