GB&W #53 was built by Alco Locomotive Works in Schenectady NY. It was typical of the Green Bay Route's fleet of seventeen 2-6-0 locomotives acquired between 1907 and 1924, consisting of A&W #71,72; GB&W #27-30, 50-56, and KGB&W #36-39.
All of these moguls had 56" drivers and were very similar in most respects. They weighed between 128,000 and 141,000 pounds and developed approximately 25,000 pounds of tractive effort.
GB&W #53 cost $14,475 and was put into service in September 1916. It was Alco Class "260-S-139" and had cast steel drive wheel centers, an improvement over the cast iron parts used in the past. It had an Alligator crosshead, the only Green Bay Route Mogul equipped with the device.
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What is an Alligator Crosshead? |
| The
crosshead is the steel block which holds the bearing joining the piston
rod and the connecting rod on the side of the locomotive. The
"alligator" crosshead is shaped like an "H" on its
side, with the connecting rod pivot point in the center of the
"H." It has a bearing surface both above and below the piston
pin (the point where the piston rod connects to the main rod, which is
supported by the crosshead).
The alligator crosshead was popular from the late 1800s to about 1920; it was preceded by the Laird crosshead, which had it's bearing sandwiched between two guides, both of which were above the pin. The Laird fell out of favor as engines got bigger, because it couldn't provide enough bearing surface. The alligator crosshead suffered from problems in keeping the two guides aligned, and from uneven wear (the top bearing surface tends to wear more); when very large "superpower" engines came into being it, like the Laird, could no longer provide enough bearing surface. - John McCoy |
What's an Alligator crosshead, you ask? Well, I asked that, too - see the information box on the right side of this page for details.
Most of the older 2-6-0's on the roster were scrapped in 1936; the survivors were renumbered #250-260 and gradually went to the dead line over the next dozen years, except for two Ahnapee & Western units which were used until the early 1950s and GB&W #50 was sold to the Marinette Tomahawk & Western for $3000 on May 15, 1939 and finally scrapped in May, 1953.
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