Re: D&RG records, who can say?

hank Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've always seen the 8/31/98 (at Burnham) date.
> Sinces this was one to the 3 Class 42 1/2 engines
> supposedly designed to burn Anthracite & operate
> West of Grand Junction
>
> I find the 1909 date a bit hard to swallow since
> the Class 42.5 were not, from what I have gathered
> over the years, considered as good as the regular
> Class 42 engines, kinda were a flop, and all the
> 4-4-0's on the D&RG were on the way out by as
> early as 1888. By the end of 1898 there were only
> 4 left on the roster, #85 (sc 1900), #94 (1903),
> #96 ('03), & #100 ('08), all class 42.

>
> There are several dates like this in the D&RG
> records, btw, with bunches of engines recorded as
> dism. all on the same day. The biggest is
> 6/30/1908 when a huge number of Class 56 engines
> (at least 20!) were supposedly cut up.

Seems like the D&RG wrote off surplus engines in large groups on about 5 year intervals. The records show large groups written off in 1888, 1893, 1898, 1903, and 1908. Only 1 of the 4-4-0's (class 42 number 100) seems to have remained operational until 1908.

Class 42.5 were definitely built as anthracite burners, complete with water tube grates. I believe they were not well-regarded for this and converted to using conventional soft coal pretty early. Most likely it was an experiment towards smoke reduction because a) none of the freight engines were built this way, and b) many D&RG passenger engines had other smoke-reducing features, such as early usage of firebox brick arches, which again were not usually seen on the freight power of that era. Also in common with many other D&RG passenger engines--but seldom seen on the freight power--the class 42.5 had steel boilers as built, probably regarded as a safety feature. Overall it paints a picture of a railroad that cared about trying to give good service to its patrons.

Can't speak for what was or wasn't regarded as a deadly man-killer, but it was a good story even if embellished in the usual manner of such things from that era. It's only natural that one of these engines should be picked as the "bad guy" since the 42.5's were decidedly ugly and ill-proportioned machines, befitting the usual artistic tendency to associate ugly with evil. Some versions of the story report that engines 107 and 100 had their numbers switched, explaining how it could have made it to 1908. That's good enough for the needs of the story. Technology changes but people stay the same, and "Based on real events" stories on television are usually embellished in similar fashion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2021 03:05AM by James.