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ESTON ONTH
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Location:
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Vanishing
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Los Angeles, Calif.
Early 1950's
The genealogy of Southern Pacific steam locomotives covers, in many cases, Central Pacific
parenthood. However, here stands a pure Southern Pacific product, the 567, an 0-6-0 T (meaning
"Tank" engine, with no tender, the water and fuel-oil supply being carried in the big whale-
like tank straddling the boiler). The old roundhouse "goat" (or shop switcher) was captured in
Los Angeles at the famous Taylor Roundhouse-sometime after 1940, probably in the early 1950s.
There was a "First #567", and 1893 Schenectady (American Locomotive Co.) 0-6-0 of the S-1
Class, with 51-inch driving-wheels and 18- by 24-inch cylinders, which originally was #1040, a
yard switcher. This engine was rebuilt and renumbered into SPMW (Southern Pacific Maintenance
of Way) locomotive #567 in December of 1935, and was scrapped in 1937.
"Second #567", an S-5 0-6-0 switcher was Baldwin-built in 1903 as #1108, being converted
to Shop Engine #567 February 6, 1940. She had 57-inch drivers and 19- by 26-inch cylinders, and
carried 180 pounds of steam.
Many of the S-3 Class switchers came from Central Pacific, with renumberings along the way,
some of the builders having been: McKay & Aldus, Rhode Island Loco. Works, and Cooke. But
the builders of most of the "goats" (as yard engines were called early in the annals of rail-
roading) were either Baldwin or American Locomotive Co.
Looking at the tender-ends of those big 4200 AC-"Mallets" behind her at Taylor, one would not
think such a petite little lady as this 567 could rustle much in the way of weight. But those six
driving-wheels could grip the rails to move a mountain of big engines when need-be! The shop
engine, as it was called, also worked the transverse-table between segments of the erecting
shops, in places like Los Angeles and Sacramento on Southern Pacific. Sometimes the shop
engine engineer, or even a hostler, made a few extra cents for the shift by making "rod-spots".
This meant he used the shop engine to slowly rotate wheels of a massive road engine, while shop
mechanics checked valve-events, etc. Sometimes this was done from the cab of the engine
tested, under steam, by "pumping" the reverse lever back and forth.
For a stubby little engine the 567 was handsome in her own "blunt" way. Notice the white-
painted smokebox front, the encircling "belly band", and those knobby square steamchests
for she was a slide-valve machine, and there were Stephenson eccentrics, links and blocks
between her frames. But "handsome is as handsome does" - and the little shop engine earned
her keep in her own un-glamorous way, most of her life spent inside the roundhouse trackage
area.
The shop engine was usually a one-man affair, with the engineer controlling the oil-fire feed-
valve from across the cab by means of an extension lever attached thereto. You'll see the injector
beneath the cab - on his side. Puttering around the "house" (as we called the old roundhouse)
the old girl didn't use too much water or fuel-oil, and was relatively easy to fire and run at the
same time. This was strictly a utility locomotive.
The past glories of Taylor (one of two roundhouses in Los Angeles) have faded away with the
passing of the steam locomotive. The little shop engine is gone too. Growling diesels now
dominate the scene - and although the railroad still rolls on, it will never again know the
pungent, alluring odors and the hissing sounds of steam, nor the personalities of engines "so
much like people" - that once we knew and loved.
SOUTHERN PACIFIC
PHOTO COURTESY MAC OWEN COLLECTION - TEXT BY HOWARD W. BULL
Published and Copyrighted © 1974 by Lyman E. Cox, P. O. Box 15902, Sacramento, Calif. 95813
JT-1316 J8492 All rights reserved
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