Ontario & Western Railway Historical Society, Inc.

Photo Of the Month

The W2 class 2-8-0 302 is a head end helper engine leading a northbound oil train at Wilbers.
The train has just ascended the short but steep hill at Smyrma as can be viewed in the distance.

Oil Train Large Format (798k)

Comments from our Members:

Wilbers was located just south of Smyrna, NY - between Norwich and Randallsville. The train is working the grade towards Smyrna, but then I am sure the firemen will get a break as they then descend towards Earlville. I understand that many of these trains were interchanged to the NYC at Oneida. NYC would run a caboose hop out of Dewitt and pick up the train off the O&W. These are not O&W owned cars, probably they had GATX markings is my guess. Doug Ellison

To my knowledge the O&W never owned any tank cars. In fact, very few railroads ever owned their own tank cars; -- most all were owned by tank car leasing companies which were (at least in the time before certain forms of vertical corporate integration attracted the attention of the Government anti-trust regulators) in turn organs of the companies engaged in the building of tank cars. Those were the outfits identified by the reporting marks ULTX and GATX..........but all of the other identifying marks were those applied by the lessee operators.

That ownership exclusion includes the milk "Tank Cars" operated across the O&W; -- all either owned by [some] shippers such as Sheffield Farms, and then others owned by General American Pfaudler and leased to various bulk milk companies.............and those were indeed "Tank Cars' in spite of casting an appearance not unlike a refrigerator car.

The most common identifiable form of "Tank Car" are those shown in the photo image at Wilber's..........and ALL of those for certain were for carrying wartime petroleum products for lessees. The O&W employees commonly called these
"Oil Trains," and if you listen to the "O&W Lost Tapes" you'll hear Homer House speak about the added difficulties engineers encountered in handling "Oil Trains" due to the surging of the liquid contents of the tank cars...........

"Oil Trains" on the O&W and everywhere along the East Coast were a feature of rail transport after the "Happy Times" the German U-Boats enjoyed during 1942 when they wrought havoc on coastal shipping routes; -- routinely catch coastal tankers in silhouette again the lights of Eastern Seaboard cities which did not early on attend to blackout regulations.

A great deal of what was transported by rail (largely from Gulf Coast ports and Gulf Coast refineries) along the Eastern United States during WWII was
aviation gasoline, to be gathered and shipped in ocean going large (T-2) tankers to Europe. In these times of reliance on foreign oil it is easily
forgotten that for a long, long time the U.S. was a major exporter of oil and petroleum products generally! Something on the order or 75-80% of all the
aviation gasoline in the WWII European Theater came from U.S. wells and was refined at the ESSO refinery on the island of Aruba. Mal Houck

Hot Shots

#9 - F unit on West Shore.

The view is from the State Street bridge in the West Englewood section of Teaneck.

This is one of the shots that did not make the cut for Mal's book but I had to have it for the website, plus it has a special meaning for me in that I never saw the O&W run but I used to work at 1500 State Street and passed over this bridge twice a day and always wondered what the Old Woman looked like blasting through this area...now I have a clearer picture in my mind. Is this a great shot or what?! Did you catch the steam engine in the distance? This photo will also be included in Mal's upcoming Modeling article entitled Three models of N.Y.O.&W. Ry. 60’ Wood 4-Door Baggage and Express Cars MCB/AAR Class BE. Walt Kierzkowski Photo - Photo location courtesy of Mike Murray.

This was taken at Dumont, NJ, taken by Harry Zannie (an old O&W railfanning pal of Hal Carstens). Harry once told me that he'd regularly take his daughter to Sunday School, drop her off and then go up to the tower. He was friendly with the tower guys and the'd have him up...........for a good vantage
point to catch passing trains.

Many O&W photos, in the diesel era, from Dumont (and many times with the Tower in the background) were shot by Harry. As few as the O&W trains were by this time, Harry'd get 'em on a Sunday at the Tower. This image, and while I have another of the same train (but not quite as good) is from a scan of a print in Walter Kierzkowski's collection.................. Mal Houck