Plymouth Locomotives

Steve OConnor posted
A Plymouth center cab locomotive at Riverdale Acme steel mill,
South Chicago. (Photo- Dr. Raymond Boothe Collection)

Since I have described Whitcomb Locomotives, it is only fair that I describe another manufacturer of "critters" (locomotives with 300-1000 HP) --- Plymouth Locomotive Works.

Richard Mead Is this the locomotive at St Louis MOT ? I ask, because as you will notice it burns propane....not conducive to being around a furnace.

Richard Mead Fate-Root-Heath in Plymouth, OH, built this propane-electric switcher in 1936 for the Joplin-Pittsburgh shortline. The company specialised in building small industrial engines and later changed its name to the Plymouth Locomotive Works. From 1910 to the late 1970s, it produced seven thousand, five hundred locomotives.

#2003 weighs 140,000 lb, has four 110 hp Westinghouse motors and a top speed of 35 mph. It moved to the Kansas City Public Service Freight Operation as #1 at some time, who donated it to the museum in 1964.

As heavy industry left the country and those plants that were left switched from rail service to trucks, the need for plant switchers became obsolete. Those industries that did need a plant switcher could buy an old diesel engine. Or they can use a Trackmobile or road-rail vehicle by adding guide wheel attachments such as Hy-Rail. Thus the demise of traditional critter manufaturers.