Thursday, February 20, 2020

Gretna locomotive gone

My thanks go out to Les Beckman, who forwarded along this link to a photo whose caption suggests that one of my mysteries has been solved. New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board 50, shown above in a photo from Wikipedia (though a different locomotive than the one in the RRPictureArchives link), has apparently been scrapped by the City of Gretna - and probably about a decade ago at this point. The diminutive four-wheel locomotive was built by Baldwin-Westinghouse in 1907 and was used by NOS&WB until about 1959. In recent decades it had been plinthed in Mel Ott Park in the city of Gretna, but as can be seen its condition had deteriorated badly. Around 2010 it disappeared from the park, as shown by Google Street View images, and it now appears that it was cut up. This was one of the pieces of equipment for which I'd been seeking information, so this is one mystery solved at least.

NOS&WB 50 was the last of these little four-wheel industrial electric boxcabs that I know of that was built by Baldwin-Westinghouse, but a few pretty similar locomotives built by GE still survive. The most original are probably Abendroth Foundry "Amy" at Branford and Singer 1, currently in private ownership.

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