I was wondering if anybody out there knew of any way to find out the history of a greensburg locomotive. Both of our greensburg's at the No.9 mine came from anthracite mines, the 7 ton came from porter tunnel and the 10 ton came from glenburn. At any rate I would like to find out more about the two of them.

hey mike, im moving this over to the projects side so it gets more exposure

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On the SN# plate covers most of the information for Greensburg. If you do not have the plate we can look through our archives & try to get you some information. The best we can usually do is the weight, the original company that ordered it, gauge, and year it was built. The records in most cases do not usually cover who the unit was sold to after the initial order.

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Pioneering the next INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (Preservation ! ). . . Saving equipment (1) mine site at a time.

I'm really after who it was originally sold to, and the gauge especially on the 10 ton motor.

when we are down there on sat we will have to get the data off the tags on both locomotives.

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and get some pictures too, so you can add 'em to the industrial locomotives post!

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O.K. The serial #'s for the No.9's greensburgs are:
The 10 ton
build date 5/5/48
serial# 2163

The 7 ton
build date 8/25/44
serial# 1160

While researching Greensburg Machine Company, Pete and I found the following information regarding s/n: 1160 :

The unit was originally sold to Superior Coal Company, Benld, Illinois. Later it was sold to D-Q Company of Clarksburg, WV. The last place it operated before ending up at Lansford and Porter? was Mercury Coal Company of Tremont, Pa.

We are still working on 2163.

Now, here is some information for s/n: 2133 at Pioneer Tunnel:

Originally sold to: Rathgeb & Gorr, Bunola, Pa.
Later sold to: C & F Coal Company, Fayette City, Pa.
Then sold to a dealer in Shamokin, Pa,, who sold it to Ashland Community Enterprise-Pioneer Tunnel.

Will look for info on the other unit.

Ray

This is pretty interesting Ray. what sort of "records" do you have or have access to? where do you initially get them?

did manufacturers actually keep records of where their locomotives went after they were sold? or were these records the result of orders for repair parts or something along these lines?

John

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-Thou shalt not little vein-

John, I have locomotive builders records for the following:

GE
Baldwin
Whitcomb
Porter
Plymouth
Goodman
Some Mancha
Atlas Car & Equipment
Brookville
Davenport
Vulcan
working on Greensburg/National Mine Service and Eimco


I acquired most of this information from individuals who work for locomotive sales and engineering departments, while some of it came from railfans and historical societies.

When customers ordered parts or technical literature they would normally include the locomotive serial, item and description. Manufactures would then record the s/n in their records and note if it was resold.

Ray

That's quite a collection, Ray. how long have you been involved in this type of research?

So, do you mean that you have info on every locomotive built by a specific manufacturer, like say, Baldwin?

The serial number is the key piece of information, I imagine, but what about the model numbers? we've been talking about GE motors in the industrial locomotives post and their builders plates have very cryptic "class" codes like: LME-2T4-C, LM-101-L-1, LME-2G10-C13, LME-2T6-S7, etc. Do you have a description of what these class codes mean?

John

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Good question John....

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John, I have been doing this type of research for close to 20 years.
The lists I have show the serial, tonnage, type (model), customer, and sometimes technical information (i.e. traction motors, generators, voltage....).

Somewhere in my files I have the breakdown of what each letter and number means on GE mine motors.

For now I can tell you the following for this motor: LME-2T4C

L = Locomotive
M = Mining
E = Electric
2 = 2 axle
T= Trolley (or maybe series)
4= 4-Tons
C= maybe cable reel, gotta look this up

For the earlier GE's (pre-1910), it is harder to make out the weight from the model, like the LM-101-L-1. I know "L" is Locomotive; "M" is Mining; but not sure what 101-L-1 means.

Ray

hey ray, interesting on the ge serial numbers. thanks for sharing that. it makes sense..... so the locomotive at the anthracite museum is a

Type LSB
Class 2C6

from that im figuring the LSB is Locomotive Storage Battery 2 axle and 6 ton. only thing is the C cant be cable reel because this one was never built with one, so the mystery still stands.

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Thanks for looking into the model codes, Ray. I didn't know you've been into this stuff for that long!

The features of interest on the locomotive should correspond with the model codes. The possible features could be:


type of locomotive (trolley, battery, combination)
traction motor information (voltage, type and number of motors on locomotive)
number of axles
locomotive weight
draw bar pull
wheel gauge
features (cable reel, crab reel, inside or outside wheels, etc)


I made a little list of GE codes I have the other day, in hopes of seeing some sort of pattern emerge.



As you metion, Ray, there seems to be two ways of assigning a code-the old way (LM-101-L-1) and a new-er way (LME-2T4-C). The storage battery locomotive in the list has "Type" "Class" and "Form" listed separately. Maybe this is the same as the others with a single "Class" (LME-2T4-C) (Type-Class-Form).

I still don't see any direct correlation between the codes and the known information, other than the LME, LSB, and "2" as the number of axles (or traction motors). If the numbers referred to the details of the traction motors, we would need another list that tells about GE traction motors....

I'm looking forward to the explanation!

John

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-Thou shalt not little vein-