Other surviving gas/oil-electric/diesel boxcabs are noted on the Other Boxcabs continuation page.

Other surviving electric (and any other odd) boxcabs are noted on the Odd Boxcabs continuation page.

Since Sep 00, there is an extremely detailed and accurate site focusing exclusively on the earliest history of the ALCo-GE-IR (AGEIR) locos, John F. Campbell's " ALCO / General Electric / Ingersoll-Rand (AGEIR) Diesel-Electric Locomotives" site; I heartily recommend it to you!  John Campbell has since added a complete roster of all the ALCo-GE-IR boxcab locos built in the first production run, totalling 33 units, from 1925 to 1930, but not the later Bi- and Tri-Power or GE-IR units.

The Dan Patch #100 before restoration:

(Photo by Eric Hopp, courtesy of the MTM - all rights reserved)

[Note that Dan Patch #100 is at the Jackson Street Roundhouse of the
Minnesota Transportation Museum.]

More Dan Patch #100 Notes   (01 Jun 09)

"I haven’t seen this engine in a few years, and I’m glad to see that its up and moving again.

I led the original restoration that started back about 1978 or so, and there is a fair bit of 'lost' history on the engine.

First, the engine was originally owned by the Dan Patch lines, AKA the MA&CRRR – Minneapolis, Anoka, and Cayuna Range Railroad.  The MA&CR never got very far from Minneapolis, and as time went on, it electrified the 100, and also added about 12” of concrete to the engine’s deck for ballast.  They removed the very peculiar round radiators from the ends of the cabs (the engines were coupled to a fan that pushed air through the radiators).  The railroad purchased power from the Minneapolis Street Railway company until it closed down in 1954, at which time they stuffed a Waukesha 6WAKDU diesel into the locomotive that belt-drove a generator.  The end result was a ~60 ton, 150 HP locomotive that could handle a few cars on level ground and at low speeds (the MA&CR didn’t move very fast under any conditions, though).

They became smaller and finally became literally a switching operation for FMC's Northern Ordnance Division.  Every time they saw the federal inspector, they would hide in the plant where he couldn’t get to them – finally, though, he saw them out in the interchange and parked his car across the tracks.  Then he wrote them up for a few pages of deficiencies.  At that point, the railroad was sold to the BN, and the BN now owned a 1913 locomotive.

The engine was stored for several years in the old St Paul Union Depot roundhouse (closed, but not abandoned).  It was protected by bars welded across the windows, which minimized break ins.

When the Minnesota Transportation Museum leased the “Long Shed” at Como Shops (named because it was 300 ft long and 80 ft wide), the engine was moved to the facility to see if it could be rebuilt.

The engine needed a lot of work – from the engine to the wiring, everything was just about worn out.  The engine leaked oil, so it was jacked up with a few hydraulic jacks and a lot of blocking so we could reach into the oil pan and seal up the leak.  The radiator leaked as fast as we could pour water back into it, so we soldered up the leaks with the radiator in place.  The headlight used a 300 watt, 120 volt hardware store bulb through a dropping resistor, and the air compressor was a 600 VDC electric locomotive compressor left over from the trolley days.  The wiring was very poor, and totally unlabeled.  It turned out that there were motor cutout knife switches, a series/series parallel - - series parallel/parallel switch for the traction motors, a very large, remote handle knife switch to disconnect from the trolley pole, and a very large double pole knife switch to go back and forth from the trolley pole to the (new) diesel engine (apparently they had installed the diesel before the overhead power was shut down, and this let them avoid the diesel as long as possible).  The lighting and air compressor switches were all 600 Volt interurban-type switches, and the cast iron motor resistors were supported by a cracked wood frame.

The trucks had lots of slack, the brake shoes were totally worn out, the motor nose bearings were shot, and some of the pinion gears were nearly worn out.  The couplers were MCB (Master Car Builder’s) couplers (interurban again), and were spring mounted for slack control.  The air tanks were mounted inside the cab on top of the 100 gallon fuel tank, and both of the air receivers were different size and construction.  The air brakes were interurban, and as I recall, they used a single brake stand set up for an M24 engineer’s valve and a plain triple valve.

We coupled house air up to it, and found that the brakes were a little strange – if you took a service reduction, nothing happened for about a minute, then the brakes went into emergency.  You could avoid this by taking a service reduction, then another 5 lbs, and it worked like it should.  The horn sounded like it was plugged with a pigeon, and the bell was long gone.

We started working on the engine – the Waukesha was equipped with a gasoline ICK starter motor (with a cracked head).  We removed the head and brazed up the crack, then reinstalled it with no leaks (after we soldered up the radiator…).  It was rope started, so you’d wrap a hunk of clothesline around the pulley, brace your foot on the side of the engine, hold the choke on, and pull the rope.  Oddly enough, it usually started very well.

Once the gas pony engine was rolling, the exhaust pipe went through the diesel’s intake manifold to preheat the incoming air.  The pony engine also used the diesel’s cooling water so that also helped warm things up.  There was a hunk of ¾" pipe that you put on the pinion stub, then stepped down hard to engage the pinion and start the diesel.  Just for the heck of it, we checked the water, oil, and fuel, then we tried it with the ?? year old diesel fuel in the tank, and it started right up.

At that point, we had to see if it could move.  Since this was a conversion from a 600 volt trolley, the engine had to be wound up to 600 volts to run the air compressor, and the relays/contactors/reverser (which might explain why they had remained a trolley as long as possible).  We wound ‘er to 600 volts, and pumped up air to about 100 lbs (none of the air gauges agreed with each other).  The brakes released, and we tried first notch in the controller.  We found that the reverser was 600 volt solenoids as well, and they were cranky – it usually took a few tries to get it to throw completely (you knew when the locomotive lurched a little).  Amazingly, it moved in the right direction.  Braking was very arbitrary – you never knew just what was going to happen, or when it would happen.

Restoration then started.  One crew used needle scalers to pound off buckets of red, white, and blue paint (outside) and park-bench green inside.  A new welded steel structure was built to support all the switchgear, the air tanks were replaced with a set from a GP-9 and moved under the locomotive, a new fuel tank was built and installed, and a new engine driven air compressor was added after the original 600 VDC compressor’s motor lost its armature.  A 32 volt generator was added to the engine, and the system was rewired for a normal locomotive headlight and the reflectors were replated with bright nickel (we had learned that if a bulb failed during operation, it would turn into an arc lamp since it had 600 volts to play with – the light was very bright until the heat melted the bulb, then it went out…).  We built the radiator shroud so it would look better than with a large radiator sticking out.  We built a radiator shutter with an air operator to help control engine temperatures.  The very tired brake system was replaced with a modified 6-ET system using a K14 switch engine stand.

The local GE apparatus shop donated a truck rebuild, so the locomotive ran over the BN to the SOO to the GE shop – several weeks later, it was done, and returned to Como shops.  A local sign painter, Denny deMars, donated lettering over the dark blue enamel paint.

When the Museum moved out of Como (due to the sale of the shops to the port authority), the locomotive was parked outside for several years, which caused it to deteriorate somewhat and required the second restoration.

I have been asked why we never took the 100 back to as-delivered condition.  Primary reason was that the locomotive had been modified continually throughout its life, and it ran for a number of years with a diesel.  All we did was to repair the deterioration, fix what was broken, and tried to keep it as accurate as possible.  EG: a new air compressor?  The original was long gone, and we had an interurban trolley-type in its place.  New brakes?  The originals were totally worn out, the rotary engineer’s valve was junk, and the old system was unacceptable to the BN."

The Dan Patch 100 builder’s plate is a duplicate, but it is a virtually full-sized duplicate.  The original was used as a pattern for St. Paul Brass to cast a new plate, and the old plate was used to spot the holes in the new plate.  The original was handed to the Museum’s board for safe keeping in the archives.  The new plate was engraved “Duplicate” on the back, and was attached with 10-32 stainless steel button head Allen bolts.  I used a punch and tapped solder into the hex sockets to prevent someone from removing the plate, and since it is still there, it must have worked.  Look closely at your photo and you’ll see the slight indentation from the solder.

The 100 went to the Duluth Museum for a few years where it was used to periodically haul a few cars to Two Harbors and back, then it returned to the Minn. Transp. Museum, where it is now on display at the MTM’s Jackson St. Roundhouse.

During WWII, the locomotive was painted red, white, and blue, and lettered 'Transportation to Victory', with a unique logo on the sides – a snarling penguin holding an 8” naval gun (which was one of FMC’s products at the plant).

And lastly, the reverser was updated to air cylinder operation with a 32 volt solenoid valve – we were never able to get the thing to operate correctly on 600 volts.  The solenoids threw the reverser drum OK, but it would bounce part of the way back, and nothing would happen until we bounced the reverser a few times.  We finally said 'NUTS', and changed it over to air operated.

I probably have some photos of the locomotive when we first started restoration on it – let me know if you’d like copies."

While waiting, I next received a THIRD message with yet more recollections (and I thought I had near-total recall!):   (02 Jun 09)

"Some more (VERY!) random memories -

The 'Patch is a very loud locomotive to operate - after all, you're right next to the engine.  Many of the engineers I ever saw run it sat on the window sill, with their heads outside the cab.  When we rebuilt it the first time, we had some drawings and photos available from the GE archives - they weren't much help, though - the locomotive had been modified so often, that they were more of a suggestion instead of a reference.

When we were pulling in new car body / motor electrical leads, we had to get into one very tight space over the front truck.  We put some plywood over the truck, and stuffed the skinniest guy we had into the space, literally pushing him in by his feet.  When he got in, we heard a muffled voice saying 'Hey - there's some kind of hatch overhead'.  We went into the cab, swept the floor, and saw the outline of a 3' x 3' hatch.  We told him to sit tight, and used a few crowbars to pop up the painted-down hatch - yup - there he was, so getting out became much easier than going in was.

The concrete ballast had been added when the engine was electrified, but the addition of the diesel engine and generator modified the overall loading to the point that they added more ballast on the opposite side of the locomotive, except they used crane counterweights.  These iron/steel sections measured about 14" square, with various lengths.  We had considered removing them, but we realized that the locomotive would no longer sit straight on the track, so they were left in place - they also made a seat for those visitors who could stand the noise, and they always flinched and panicked when the contactors inside the switchgear flashed or sparked (the switchgear was right across the aisle from the counterweights - your knees usually were up to the switchgear guard screen).

When the MA&CR ran the engine, it was usually square-end forward - that way, the engineer could reach out and throttle down the engine when they were waiting.  I never liked square-end operation myself - you had to look over the generator to see anything, and it was louder.

The rear windows all had one upper corner that was rounded to about a 4" radius - one theory was that these were old interurban windows.  All I knew for a fact was that we needed to fabricate curved window molding to hold the glass in.  After trying many different approaches, we finally said NUTS (again), and cast lead strips that matched the molding's profiles.  These were tacked in for the curved sections of the windows, and when painted, looked perfect.

The window hardware was all interurban - the window lifts were labeled "Wasson".  We found a window shop which duplicated every window perfectly, so we were able to avoid repairing them one piece at a time.

We sent the 18" headlight reflectors out for re-plating.  After all their years, they were long overdue.  The plating shop did an excellent job, and for the first time in very many years, the lights actually did something.  As I recall, we ordered new headlight switches from Prime.

We installed new car body lights by using interior photos of various doodlebugs, box cabs, and the Milwaukee box cab at the Duluth Museum as guides.  We wanted lighting over the engineer's seat, and wound up using fixtures from an old mail car.  They matched the photos in my 1918 locomotive cyclopedia 100%.  The 32 volt panel came from the same old RPO car - it was small enough to handle what we needed perfectly.

The car body had two identical engineer's seats, but one cushion - apparently the engineer carried it from end-to-end as needed.

When the locomotive rolled into the shop, it had a roof top running board that had been used to mount the trolley poles.  The boards were removed, and the many bolt holes were welded up.  We used a guy holding a copper backup bar inside the locomotive, and a welder on the roof - once they agreed on the hole to be filled, the rest was easy.

When the job was nearly finished, we needed a bell for the engine.  The old photos showed a swinging bell, so a modern diesel bell wasn't correct.  We asked Tom Lamphier (President of the BN) if they might have a spare bell.  They shipped us a bell, but it was designed to be mounted on a sloping boiler section on a steam engine, so it would hang offset from center.  We were debating cutting the cradle and re-welding it when we realized that the NP steam engine on the next track over in our shop had a bell, but it was the wrong bell for the steamer - it was designed to go on a level portion of a steam boiler, but was mounted on a tapering section.  We swapped the bells, and both locomotives wound up with the right bell.

The headlights were originally mounted on the center of the car body end radiators.  The radiators were radial - that is, air blew out the sides of the radiators instead of out the end.  With the headlights on the radiators, there wouldn't have been much room for a brakeman to move from one side to the other.  When the radiators were removed, they were relocated to the upper portion of the cab.  The car body steel in the ends is still curved to accommodate the radiators.

The horns had cracked diaphragms, which is why they screeched.  We were unable to track down the right diaphragm (the horns looked like a small Leslie horn, but none of the parts matched), so we machined new ones out of hard-temper brass, and they worked fine.

The engine exhausted through a 6" pipe that came through the roof and turned over the side.  We decided to build a flapper-type exhaust so it could go straight up instead.  Unfortunately, the flaps were made from 10 gauge steel, so it clattered a little at idle, but at open throttle, the flaps opened perfectly, so they were left as they were.

Every piece of pipe in the locomotive was replaced.  What we had was all a mixture of wrought iron and steel pipe, with fittings that ranged from forged steel high pressure to hardware store specials.  We had some very good fitters in the project, and as much of the new pipe as possible was bent to fit instead of using threaded fittings.  At this time, the SOO Line was junking out some switchers at Shoreham, and we were able to buy buckets of fittings for about $5 per bucket.  We had one guy who spent a lot of time at the shop bead blaster cleaning them up.  They were all special order fittings (union ells, bell valves, cut out cocks, etc.) so we saved a ton of money.  They were all sorted when done, and the fitters could just go to the right bin and get what they needed.

The locomotive had foot boards instead of the original cowcatcher - we didn't have any old boiler tubes as raw material, but some steel tubing, angle iron, and some welding resulted in a very nice set of prototypical pilots for the engine.

When we rewired the contactors and iron resistors, we had to start by tracing out what we had, then we matched it with old drawings to see if everything matched up.  Once we figured out what was going on, we could run new cable.  When we tested out our wiring, we started by pulling the motor switches so we could walk the controller through the points without the chance of the engine doing something very strange.  It worked!  We then tried it out with the motors, and it still worked.  The locomotive was usually left in the series/series-parallel mode - it didn't have the power to run in full parallel if it was pulling more than a wood bodied caboose.  In series, though, it did fairly well if you didn't load it down. Remember, it was used to switch one - two cars at a time for most of its life, and it never spent much time on mainline trackage.

SIDELIGHT:  The BN used to operate a salvage yard at their Brainard, MN, shops.  I could drive up there and buy anything in the piles for about $100 per ton, from switch stands to broke-in-two chains.  I found traction motors, EMD pistons, steam headlight generators, cast iron hand trucks, anvils, and all the rest of the odds and ends left over from a large railroad.  One day I walked into the shop and saw the floor was covered with locomotive bells --- steam locomotive bells, to be exact.  I asked the yard manager what was up, and he told me that first of all, I didn't see ANY bells.  I asked him (hypothetically) why the shop would ever have any bells, and he told me that (hypothetically also) from time to time, the railroad was asked for a bell for a donation to a church or city hall or locomotive restoration.  He commented that if something like that ever happened, it (hypothetically again) literally took a letter from the President's office to make it happen.  He commented that the bells I didn't see would be back in their store room as soon as the room was rearranged.  The BN closed the shop years ago and tore the buildings down, and I have no idea where the bells (the ones I didn't see...) ever went.  Ah, the good old days....."

Speaking of windows into history, Richard Caig, up in Northern Alberta, Canada, has the original builder's plate and main generator plate from Dan Patch #101 in his collection:   (29 Jul 09)

(Photos courtesy of R. Caig - all rights reserved)
[Click on thumbnailed pictures for bigger images]

The first commercially successful internal combustion engine powered and built in the USA was completed on 2nd July 1913 by General Electric for the Minneapolis, St.Paul, Rochester and Dubuque Electric Traction Company (also known as the Dan Patch Line).  This was Dan Patch Box Cab road #100 and it was assigned General Electric builders plate serial #3763.  This box cab weighed in at 57 tons and the car body and trucks were built by Wason Car Company of Springfield, Mass.  As for power the Dan Patch 100 had two eight cylinder V8 model GM-16 engines and a 10 horse power GM23 engine for auxiliary power.

Due to the satisfactory performance of Dan Patch road #100, the MStPR&D (or Dan Patch Line) ordered three more locomotives from General Electric.  Their weight increased to 60 tons and on their completion in June/August 1915 they were assigned road numbers 101, 102 and 103 (General Electric Builders Plate serial #'s 3786, 3787 & 3788 respectively).

In 1916 the Dan Patch line (MStPR&D) passed into receivership and it finally became part of the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern in 1918.  In those dark years Dan Patch Box Cabs 101 (GE serial #3786), 102 (GE serial #3787) and 103 (GE serial #3788) were all sold to Southern Pacific. Dan Patch Box Cab 101 (GE serial #3786) was sent to Los Angeles where it became Pacific Electric road #1501.  Dan Patch Box Cabs 102 (GE serial #3787) and 103 (GE serial #3788) were sent to Visalia Electric Railway at Exeter, California becoming road #s 402 and 401 (respectively).  Visalia Electric #402 (Dan Patch Box Cab 102, GE serial #3787) was transferred back to Pacific Electric in August 1918, finally becoming Pacific Electric road number 1502.  All three pioneer gas electrics lasted until 1945 when they were withdrawn from service.

As for Dan Patch Road #100 (GE serial #3763), she was retained by Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern in 1918 and finally presented to the Minnesota Transportation Museum in Minneapolis in Minnesota.

Roster of surviving ALCo-GE-IR (and just GE-IR or GE alone) boxcabs on Survivor Boxcabs page.

Other surviving gas/oil-electric/diesel boxcabs are noted on the Other Boxcabs continuation page.

Other surviving electric (and any other odd) boxcabs are noted on the Odd Boxcabs continuation page.

Surviving boxcabs in Mexico now appear at BOXCABS MEXICANOS.  There is an American-styled boxcab preserved in England, the 1932 British Thomson-Houston.