Texas & Pacific #300

Tom Stamey reports:

There was an elderly man who built several 10 wheelers from Allen’s castings. He also built the boilers. About 1986 he announced at Florida Live Steamers he had completed his last engine and would not build any more due to his age.

They tried selling it for about 3 years without any luck. I called a fella who came from Florida to Pickard’s meets and asked him about the engine. I was told he had seen it run, and it looked ok but he had not run it himself. They were wanting about $15-16,000 for it. I made more calls but never got much additional info regarding the engine except for one thing: this man had built several engines for the club in the past to sell as a way to get money to expand the track. I wanted an Allen 4-6-0 due to their lighter weight than the big 4-6-0 #334 I had.

Well, one day I spoke to a member in charge of the sale. I wound up offering $11,000 if the engine was delivered to me in Annetta, Tx. The offer was accepted and two of them brought the engine to me. I bought them a BBQ lunch.

It was a few days before I was able to fire it up. When running I found it was not in good time and Terry McCauley and I set out to correct it. The timing arms were not from Allen’s casting but were scratch built. We also found one driver loose on one axle. There were a few other things that needed correcting, and it became obvious that the man who built it had very poor eyesight. 

Terry spent about 2 weeks working on the engine and then we ran it several weekends and if we ran into any other surprises, we fixed them. Finally, we tested its pulling capability.

On Terry McGrath’s track it pulled 23 cars with 2 people. We discovered we needed to choke the exhaust nozzle from 5/16 to 1/4″ and we continued checking it. With the above load the pressure gauge never moved from 135 lbs. but with somewhere around 10 or less cars it did not steam as easy, although it did steam. But after changing the exhaust opening to 1/4″ it became a truly wonderful steamer. You could start at 100 lbs. at the station and by the time you got to the back curve it set on 135 lbs. I learned not to heavy fire it because it would keep popping off. There were some days that I had to barely put in coal to keep pressure up. Man, I fell in love with #300. With problems gone we put the Texas & Pacific engine paint on it. Grey green boiler cover, graphite smokebox, and oxide red cab roof, along with green cab interior and gold lettering. Terry McCauley did the paint job and wow! We did as much as we could to model x-T&P 315 at Texas State Railroad (I’ve ridden in the cab of #315).

#300 made me very proud a few years ago at Pickard’s. At Maxmillion a 13 car (one car with a 500 lb. old boiler on it) train sat with 3 hydraulic driven diesels dead. They kept trying to get someone with a couple of engines to come pull them in. I told them & the dispatcher I would pull them in. I was poopooed at such a brash statement. But I got even and pulled the whole mess to the siding he needed (and received some applause). I didn’t say anything–just let ‘em gawk over it. Yep, #300 got ‘em.

#300 made several trips to Maricopa Live Steamers in Phoenix, Bill Severns’ in Albuquerque, NM, Pat McCarthy’s wonderful track in Missouri, two tracks in Oklahoma and of course all the Texas tracks. What a blast!

I did lose a couple of boilers in all those years due to the right-side sheets on the rear stopping up and allowing it to overcook a couple of silver soldered copper flues. I also replaced the valve gear due to wear.

Unfortunately, 3 days after I sold the engine 2 years ago the same boiler issue showed up. I promptly told the new owner, Shane Murphy, I would replace the boiler, and I did. Yes, those dirty, filthy 1.5″ coal fired engines do require shopping like their much larger cousins.

Shane Murphy was, and is, an HO model railroader and when he lived in Argyle, TX, I visited his railroad several times and one day invited him to come to Annetta for a live steam meet. He almost went crazy when he got there. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. I took him on several rides and then offered to let him run the engine. His eyes got as big as silver dollars, and he could not believe his good luck. After many round trips, he asked if he could run it alone. After explaining the 3 tenants of steam engines (screaming “WATER-WATER-WATER”) I turned him loose with it. He went crazy running it for a long time. Finally, we took the engine to the steaming bays, and I showed him how to dump ashes, and all the other necessary stuff. For years, he kept reminding me he wanted to buy my engine. I promised it to him. His day finally came because my age and health made it too hard to continue the hobby. 39 years and it was a blast. And it provided me with some of the finest friends and characters I ever met. 

I remember John Enders tearing up when he said he was having to leave the hobby because he could not handle it anymore. I hear you John.