Mystery Photo #39: Old 708

Old-708

A train rolls through western Duluth. Year unknown. Photographer unknown. The number on the train is 708. Anyone have insight?

3 Comments

Special K

about 8 years ago

Steam Locomotive

Based on this eBay listing, I'd say it's somewhere in the 1940s or '50s.

Vintage DM&IR-Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range #91, 93 & 708 steam locomotives

spy1

about 8 years ago

Per donsdepot.donrossgroup.net:

629, Class H-1D, was built by Alco in 1937, #68899, and became DM&IR 708, Class E-4, in 1951. Retired in 1961 and scrapped.

spy1

about 8 years ago

Railroad Preservation News:

The Duluth Missabe & Iron Range Railway was owned by U.S. Steel as was the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad. In the throes of dieselization, the B&LE had surplus steam power and sold eighteen of its “Texas” type locomotives to the DM&IR in 1951.

Numbers 700-709 bought from the Bessemer & Lake Erie in 1951. Former B&LE numbers 621-630. All scrapped in 1961.

These were the last steam locomotives bought by the Missabe Road and they were a mix of classes that ranged in weight from 519,740 pounds to 524,382 pounds. With tenders they weighed in excess of 900,000 pounds. This group was assigned road numbers 700 through 717 and was used to haul ore during peak periods.

All eighteen of the DM&IR’s “Texas” type locomotives were scrapped in 1961. There is one surviving B&LE 2-10-4, number 643 in McKees Rocks, Penn., Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s hometown.

From the Post Gazette in Pittsburgh: 
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Yard operated in McKees Rocks for more than a century but began to decline in the 1950s … It was primarily a site for maintenance of steam locomotives, and when the railroad industry transitioned to diesel, the site became obsolete. By the mid-1980s, only a skeleton crew remained there.

Latest news on the only remaining steam locomotive of the type in this PDD post. No word if this ever happened:

Akron Railroad Club: Stranded B&LE Steamer May Find New Home

Topix.com: Locomotive rejected by McKees Rocks Borough going to Tarentum for display

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