GE Survivor Boxcab Singer #1 Page keywords = boxcab ALCo GE IR I-R American Locomotive Company General Electric Singer #1 Ingersoll Rand EMD Electro motive oil electric diesel engine rail road 47 1000 museum Indiana Transportation
Updated: 03 Nov 2008, 10:15 ET
(Created 20 Sep 2002)
[Ref: This is boxsing1.html (URL http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/boxsing1.html )]

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S. Berliner, III's

GE Survivor Boxcab
Singer #1 Page

Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
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Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
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I-R 60-ton Demo

A new type of locomotive!
Ingersoll-Rand 1925 Demonstrator #9681
(later CNJ #1000)
(ALCo builders photo S-1484 - source uncertain;
possibly from 1980s AAR flyer)

GE SURVIVOR BOXCAB Singer #1

Electric Locomotive

(General Electric - 1898)

There are now more than seventy (70) BOXCAB pages;
see the main Boxcabs page and the Boxcabs INDEX.

PAGE INDEX:

This page is unindexed - please scroll down.

See the SURVIVOR BOXCAB LOCATIONS MAP.

and the

ROSTER OF SURVIVING ALCo-GE-IR BOXCABS.

See also the Electric Boxcabs page, et seq.

There are now separate pages for each AGEIR or similar surviving boxcab; the redundant material is being removed (very slowly).

This site has now been visited

times since the counter was installed.

General Electric 1898 Singer #1 (S1 on Survivors Map) -

(01 Nov 08)

(Zillmer/Ussher/Strombeck photo - full credit below^*, courtesy of J. Strombeck - all rights reserved)
[click on thumbnailed picture for larger image)

I'd just (24 Oct 2008) heard of yet another survivor boxcab, Singer #1, an 1898 standard gauge General Electric locomotive (boxcab shunter), displayed operable, with a double-ended wood cab with an arch roof, which was taken out of service in 1955. She was first preserved that year by a private owner in the Chicago area, Robert A. Selle, and then went to the Indiana Transportation Museum at Forest Park in Noblesville, Indiana (some 10 miles due north of Indianapolis), at some unspecified date. I'd posted this information on the Survivor Boxcabs page and on the GE Boxcabs page and am trying to get more information about her; as I suspected, she turned out to be an electric traction box motor rather than a gasoline or oil loco. Now that I know more, she merits a dot on the map and this page of her own.

* - Harry Zillmer and George Ussher used to photograph RR scenes together; when George died, his photos went to Harry, so the old photo of #1, above (which I found on Tom Kepshire's Monon site), is from Harry's collection, which in turn went to Jeff Strombeck, and might have been taken by either one of them, and is reproduced here as being from the collection of Jeff Strombeck, with his kind permission {whew!}.

Shortly after notifying me of #1's existence, my correspondent told P. J. Dean, a volunteer at the Indiana Transportation Museum, of my interest and I then received a packet of information and pictures taken there. First, a front view and some interior shots:

(Photos by W. J. Dean - all rights reserved)
[click on thumbnailed pictures for larger images)

Note that the cab is off center, with a walkway down one side only and end doors centered on the chassis but toward the walkway side on the cab.

(03 Nov 08)

Next we have a view of the placarding, front and side details, and another shot of the control stand:

The Singer Manufacturing Company's plant in South Bend, Indiana, was located there to take advantage of local hardwoods used to make cases for Singer sewing machines. Steam locomotives were not advisable in a lumber storage yard, so GE furnished four small electric box motors (locomotives) over the years, starting in 1901; only #1 was used inside the South Bend plant, shunting small lumber flats between storage sheds, the kiln(s?), and the factory. #2 (even smaller) hauled coal to the power plant, #3 was sent to the Singer sawmill in Cairo, Illinois, and #4 (slightly larger) handled yard interchange with the New York Central and the New Jersey, Indiana & Illnois railroads. The plant also had a line car (a trailer) and six coal hoppers; when the plant closed down in 1955, a few hoppers went to Bendix in South Bend and #1 was saved. All other rail equipment was scrapped.

(information and following photo from a pamphlet by Robert A. Selle, MCERA,
reprinted in CERA Bulletin 104)

This photo of three of Singer's four locos, #1, #2, and #4, was taken on 24 Jul 1915 and is reproduced here with the specific written permission of the Central Electric Railfans' Association (CERA) from page IV-25 of their Bulletin 104, Electric Railways of Indiana, Section IV, Other Lines (it was scanned and lightened from a xerocopy of a screened, printed photo). If I read the photo aright, both #1 and #2 have that walkway down one side and #4 has a full width cab with centered end doors.

(03 Nov 08)

A history of the Singer plant and more photos are on Tom Kepshire's Monon site. Here, with Tom's kind permission, is an old photo of the plant:

With the exception of one end of one building, it's all gone now. You can see what are now the Conrail tracks in the upper right corner.

All I have to do now is to remember to stop in Noblesville the next time I drive across the country!

See also the Electric Boxcabs page, et seq.

There are now more than seventy (70) BOXCAB pages;
see the main Boxcabs page and the Boxcabs INDEX.

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S. Berliner, III

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