Jawn Henry vs John Henry

[NW Mailing List]

 Mike, I will take a stab at this. 

 I looked through every single N&W book that I own and came up with this. In "N&W, Giants of Steam" by Jeffries, it simply states that Number 2300 was affectionately known as Jawn Henry. 

 An article in the October '76 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman, tells about the real or fictional John Henry (depending on the source),a  huge, towering, black man from the south who helped build tunnels and who in 1872 while building a tunnel near Hilldale, West Virginia, took on the new fangled steam driven drills. Where most men used a 10 pound hammer, John used two twenty pound hammers, one in each hand and he managed to beat the new steam driven drill. John managed to bore two holes, each over seven feet deep, and the new steam drill bored one hole nine feet deep. All this in a 35 minute time limit. John won a prize of $100 in cash. Contrary to the song, he did not die after doing this feat. 

 It also had this to say about Jawn Henry. The Jawn Henry was built in a joint venture by Norfolk and Western, Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp., Westinghouse Electric Company and the Babcock and Wilcox Company. Steam pressure was 600 psi, exactly twice that of Class Y6b. The locomotive number 2300 was 161 feet, 1and 1/2 inches long.  including the 49'-6" tender. It tipped the scales at 586 tons. The high temperature steam spun a turbine which produced a shaft HP of 4500. 

 Perhaps that is why someone called it the Jawn Henry."The name seems to imply great strength, power and just plain guts." On a different note, it could just be a colloquial thing. Like saying Hog or Hawg.  Maybe someone else will have something more definitive. 

 Ken M.