Re: Baldwin Builders numbers and a Bell mystery

AHH! Rich you are correct! This bell was removed from Meridian Lumber Co. 2-6-0 #202 when it was stored at Long Leaf (it is still there), after it was discovered that person or persons unknown had removed the builders plates, and the number plates and had loosened the bells, but could not get them off of the locomotives themselves. The bells were stored in the back of the closed commissary building, which now houses the visitors center at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum.

You can imagine my surprise looking at those numbers when we saw them.

As near as I can figure, Meridian Lumber 2-6-0 #204 was ordered at about the same time as Sandy River #24, and the bell was stamped shortly after the ordering. Somewhere along the line on the construction floor, a worker picked up the bell that he thought belonged on the engine, and it was shipped to Louisiana. Sandy River got the bell that was sitting next to it and it went to Maine.

Meridian #204 was Baldwin 51711 shipped at the end of April, 1919, while Sandy River #24 was Baldwin #51803, and was shipped in early May of the same year.

I theorize that the bell went to Meridian #202 after #204 was wrecked in the woods in December, 1952. Its frame was broken in multiple places and the engine was cut up in the woods with the pieces being brought back to Long Leaf. #202 finished up the Long Leaf operations at the end of 1954 and it was stored out by the highway south of the mill. Several years later, according local legend the bell was stolen off of the engine and the Crowell's pulled a bell that had been stored in the enginehouse to put on the engine, which was probably the bell on the #204, that should have been on Sandy River #24.

That is my theory, and until some one has a better one, I am sticking to it.