This group purchased 19 from Henry MacMillan, Galva, Illinois. According to
my research Henry purchased various park railroad equipment pieces and resold
them to others. Henry sold the locomotive to the Strum group running it for
several years. They were winding down their operations at the time we were
looking for a steam engine. The boiler was shot. We contracted with Norman
Sandley to build a new boiler for the locomotive. Our boiler and the boiler
for the Milwaukee County Zoo's 4-6-2 were Norman's last boilers he built.
No. 19 was built as a 19 inch gauge locomotive. We re-gauged it to 16
inch in the 1980's since we acquired a Miniture Trains G-16 F-7 tran set
and a little later the Crown, all 16 inch gauge. We operated dual gauge
for awhile. Major maintance issue. We numbered the Strum engine "19" since
it was built for 19 inch track. The Crown became "16" since it was built
for 16 inch track. Not too original, but it worked for us.
No. 19 was built with a pedestal for a third driver, the lead. We guessed
somewhere in its life the driver was lost. Also, a 4-4-0 will operate on
smaller radius track.
David Peterson email