Chuck Amstein also visited a salt mine museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, and sent us these pictures. The most on-topic item is this unusual electric locomotive from the Hutchinson & Northern, on display outside.
It was built by GE in 1919 as a demonstrator for their inside-bearing truck design. I'm not sure exactly what the advantages of this design were supposed to be, but it didn't catch on. The demonstrator, however, was sold to the H&N, and used until 1963.
It appears to be in excellent cosmetic condition, although it's missing its poles.
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The rest of the mine looks pretty interesting, too, if you like this sort of thing.
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Sort of like the coal mine at MSI.
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2 comments:
Orange Empire Railway Museum has the sister locomotive to this, also from the H&N.
I know of at least three of these inside-bearing steeplecabs that GE built. H&N #1, the one at OERM mentioned by David, ran in/near Hutchinson for its entire service life. H&N #2 was built as a demonstrator and was used on the East Erie Commercial Railway, GE's own switching line, from 1919 until it was sold to the H&N in 1926. The third was Delaware Lackawanna & Western 4001, which was used to switch the DL&W Wallabout Terminal in Brooklyn, NY until 1940, after which it was sold to a line in Canada. More info at http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/dlwwallaboutterm.html
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