N&W Builders plates

[NW Mailing List]

Forgive me, but I was going and cleaning out old emails today, and saw this one. A really late comment here, to follow up on Ron's comment. His speculation may well be correct on it being a replacement plate. A look at the fairly common photo of the 2130 under the coal wharf at Bluefield on February 10, 1953 shows no builder's plate on the engineer's side.

I don't know if Jim has cleaned his plate up and polished it or not. I have the number plate from 2130 and it is indeed bronze. However, probably about 25 years ago, I acquired a Class A plate, I forget which right now, but it was one of the roller bearing As.  The person I got it from was the original source and it was untouched. It was filthy and really cruddy. Of course, now I wish I had left it alone. But as I was scraping on it, it looked for all the world like cast iron, and scratching on the back was revealing nothing but a silver/gray color. It was I worked on it with a wire wheel. It looked silver all the way, until I finally broke through the last layer and bronze appeared. It was coated with many, many coats of graphite, and I would have bet that it was cast iron until that point. I did think and take a few pictures of it half cleaned, so it is still verifiable.

Ken Miller

On Aug 14, 2013, at 2:04 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:


> Jim -   Some of the N&W locomotives built during WWII had cast iron plates.  I have a cast iron A plate in my personal collection.  I had never seen a Y, but it is completely possible.  Maybe a new plate was cast up during WWII, OR maybe iron was hot that day and they just poured what they had available.  After collecting since 1963, I have seen a little bit of everything over the years!

>  

> Ron Muldowney

> 

> From: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>

> To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org

> Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 10:42:58 PM

> Subject: Re: N&W Builders plates

> 

> I have one Y6a builder's plate from no. 2130 which is iron, not brass.  

> I bought it at the scrapper in Cincinnati in 1959 or 1960 and he cut  

> it off the engine and handed it to me. The price was $ 5.00. The  

> builder's number is 286 and the date is May, 1938. Does anyone know  

> why this plate is cast iron instead of brass?

> 

> -Jim Herron

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