One for the heavy metal fans...

@DaveBrt Like I said, my mother is from Martinsburg and I still frequent Berkeley County to this day. I am fascinated with the story and drove by the roundhouse just a month or so ago. I read the excellent reviews of your book on Amazon. I would love a copy. I could get a copy on Amazon, but I would prefer to get my copy directly from you. Just let me know what I should do. I am leaving tomorrow to visit my mother in Baltimore and she will enjoy hearing about your book! Thank you!
 
If your relative worked until after 1936, you should check with the National Archives, as they have the Railroad Retirement Board Records:

Railroad Retirement Board Records​

Overview​

The National Archives at Atlanta has received approximately 54,000 cubic feet of Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) Inactive Claims Folders from the National Archives Great Lakes Region.

The information found within these records will be of interest to genealogists and historical researchers. The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board administers a Federal retirement benefit program covering the nation's railroad workers. The Inactive Claim Folders deal primarily with the administration and payment of these benefits. We will provide information on deceased persons for the purpose of genealogical or historical research. However, we will not release information on a person who is still living without the written consent of that person.

The Railroad Retirement Board continues to retain ownership of claim files deemed to be active. Records transferred to NARA have been inactive for at least seven years. If you are looking for information in your own claim file, or are researching someone whose file may have been recently active (claims filed, payments made, etc), you should begin by contacting the Railroad Retirement Board (https://www.rrb.gov/index.php/Resources/Genealogy or (877) 772-5772).

The RRB Inactive Claims Folders are limited to individuals who worked in the rail industry after 1936. Please do not contact us with requests for records before that date. We do not have that information, nor do we generally have any pertinent records for an individual whose rail service was performed on a casual basis and/or was of short duration. Also, the claim folders are only on persons whose employers were covered under the Railroad Retirement Act. Employers such as streetcar, interurban, or suburban electric railways are not covered under this Act.
 
@DaveBrt Like I said, my mother is from Martinsburg and I still frequent Berkeley County to this day. I am fascinated with the story and drove by the roundhouse just a month or so ago. I read the excellent reviews of your book on Amazon. I would love a copy. I could get a copy on Amazon, but I would prefer to get my copy directly from you. Just let me know what I should do. I am leaving tomorrow to visit my mother in Baltimore and she will enjoy hearing about your book! Thank you!
I have bought the book from @DaveBrt and do recommend it. It is very well written and put together. Plenty of facts and pictures.
Lubliner.
 
... and unless we're talking ironclads, they didn't get any heavier than locomotives. Well postwar, but I wanted to share, since I just saw this photo for the first time today:

View attachment 405480

The man on the left is my great-grandfather, John Chester "Chet" Watson, brakeman and part-time conductor. (I have his conductor's watch.) He passed away well before I was born... I don't suppose anyone can take a guess at the type of locomotive they're standing in front of from such a limited frame, but maybe...?
Great Photo what an incredible piece of history you’ve had passed on to you. Thanks for sharing.
 
My Father born in 1917 growing up in the Anthracite Coal Region, had to quit school to help with the family income. His first job was a fireman on the steam locomotives on the run from Schuylkill County to Philadelphia hauling Coal. An old pay stub showed he was making 15 cents an hour.
 
The Chesapeake and Ohio (C & 0) Railroad ran down the Virginia Peninsula and dead ended at Newport News where the coal cars were dumped onto a conveyor belt and hoisted into the hold of a waiting ship. These mainly came from the West Virginia coal fields, and once aboard a vessel, the coal would be taken through the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Coast to its port of calling. The downtown area was full of railroad cars, empty and full, and the trains were long, creating a traffic holdup about every morning when a shipment would arrive.
Lubliner.
 
Its either a Baldwin 2 6 6 2 or 2 6 6 4
Continuing to notice more details in the Rail Road Book-- in the mid 1920s, he began to note the engine numbers as well as times and routes.

The numbers he mentions are

409 & 418 (apparently together)
647
960
968 (and 968 & 969 together)
2237
2823
2955
2958
7256*
7266
7392
7400
7409
7734
7741
9031*
9032
9060
9062
9071
9209
9351*
9770
9772
9773
9780
9782
9828
9872
9873
9879
9881

The engines noted most frequently are 7256, 9031, and 9351, and the combination 968 & 969. Later in the listings, it switches to "DM#1" and "DM#2"... (D for Diesel, maybe?)
For what it's worth, includes listings of railroads that used these locomotives

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=2-6-6-2

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=2-6-6-4
 
The wreck train would have been for cleaning up train wrecks... most railroads had several stationed at big division points and they would be dispatched whenever a wreck occurred. They would have had a "big hook" steam crane for re-railing locomotives and cars, plus a couple of flat cars of spare wheelsets to help get damaged cars back on track. Then you'd have a couple old boxcars full of tools, and maybe an old coach to feed\house the workers.
 
http://www.columbusrailroads.com/ne...=44Steam_1945-1960&submenu4=x9PRR_Locomotives

This website shows locomotives in the Columbus area of the PRR. To my eyes, the locomotive in your photo resembles a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_class_N2sa... I figure a 2-10-2 fits the bill for "big loco I should get a picture with"! Pennsy had few articulated locomotives, and no 2-6-6-2 OR 2-6-6-4s! That locomotive doesn't look like particularly like a six-coupled anyways to me, if it were you'd be seeing the cylinders in the photo.

It's hard to tell since Pensy built or rebuilt alot of their locomotives themselves at Altoona, so that they have a "family resemblance". Fortunately, that makes it pretty clear that the loco is a Pennsylvania RR one: the Belpair (squarish looking) firebox is a dead give away, and it seems like alot of PRR locos had the three pipe set up that was previously noted.
 
To my eyes, the locomotive in your photo resembles a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_class_N2sa... I figure a 2-10-2 fits the bill for "big loco I should get a picture with"!

I don't see any N2sa/2-10-2 engines noted in Great-Grandpa's book, but there are a few years when he didn't note the engine number, unfortunately... so it will remain a question mark for the time being if it was a "here's my job" vs. "here's the biggest engine we could find to get a photo taken in front of" :laugh:
 
I tried to identify it by those three distinctive rails above their heads, but I haven't found it. It's a big boy, but I don't think it's a Baldwin. I will keep looking. It might help to know which railroad he worked for; B&O, PRR, etc. That might help narrow the search. I am originally from Baltimore and do have a B&O book with locomotive types in it. I will try to dig that up.

You have yourself a wonderful picture! I think it is fantastic to have an image of your great, grandfather at work with some of his co-workers!

Update: I recently bought Paul Carleton's Pennsy Steam: A to T, and based on the photos I have tentatively identified the locomotive behind them as a K2 "Pacific" 4-6-2 built by Alco.
 
One of my great grandfathers, Claude Wallace, worked in a rail yard in southern Ohio in the early 20th century. Got so used to the sound of trains that he didn't hear the one that killed him.
I had a great grandfather who was killed by a train too in a manner of speaking. He had been drinking and was riding a train when the conductor came to check his ticket stub. He couldn't find his stub and despite the fact that his cousin and a friend vouched for the fact that he had bought a ticket the conductor insisted that he pay for another ticket. My great grandfather then started an argument which turned into a physical confrontation and railroad personnel ended up chasing him out to the platform on the car he was riding on. He was either thrown from the moving train or he jumped after producing a revolver and firing a shot according to one newspaper account. My family believes he was thrown from the train but an inquest found no wrong doing by railroad staff. This happened near Rocky Mount, N.C. in August 1911. My great grandfather was only twenty five years old and left a widow and my five year old grandfather without a father.
 
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