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Ensley, Alabama, circa 1906. "Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co.'s furnaces." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
Flangeless center drive wheels were common on full size railroads as well as models. Just as with model engines, the sharp curves found in industrial yards required some sort of provision to enable the locos to make it around the curves without binding. It would have been better to have one of the several makes of locos with drive shafts like Climax, Shay and Heisler. Sharp curves presented no problems to them.
Brakes. we don't need no stinking brakes. It will fall apart if it hits anything.
This may just be down to the view, but do those locomotives have small or no flanges on their inner drivers for working round tight curves? I thought that only happened in the model version.
Ensley Works was the largest producer of steel ingots and rail in the south for most of its history. By 1920, half the steel made in the south came from these open-hearth furnaces. The open-hearth method of steelmaking was rendered obsolete by more modern integrated methods, and this plant was closed by U.S. Steel in 1976 as a result.
Pictures of this site taken in 2008 can be found here:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310280
A short history of the Ensley Works can be found on the BhamWiki:
As the master HO scale artist of the 1950s, John Whitby Allen would have modeled that flatcar exactly as she sits. He loved this kind of rolling stock on his Gorre & Daphetid Railroad. His work is something see to this day. He was a photographer by trade and did justice to his amazing creation.
The locomotives have oil burning headlights and there are two lanterns on the running board of the locomotive to the left for night work.
The rolling stock is eclectic, to say the least, their stenciling amusing in our era of 140 ton cars.
Must have been a hazardous environment in darkness with no in-plant lighting, holes in the ground and junk all around to fall over.
Working within the mill itself would be no treat, either.
Thank You.
better not be in interchange service! Aside from the fact that it's about to break in two, it has no brakes whatsoever.
Woe to those who live downwind.
Looks like flatcar 1021 is about to have a catastrophic failure.
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