Lehigh Valley Coal Company No. 117
Date and photographer of the first image are unknown. The second and fifth images (the latter by Gerald Oliveto) are from the defunct Pioneer Village website. The sixth image is courtesy of the New Jersey Museum of Transportation. The still from the film is Copyright © 1970 Paramount Pictures (not used by permission).
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Vulcan
Iron Works, based in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, sold 0-4-0T s/n 3512 to Lehigh Valley Coal Company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
in February of 1925, as their No. 117. Lehigh Valley was later acquired by the Jeddo-Highland Coal Company, and she then worked
at Jeddo, Pennsylvania. No. 117 was unusual in that she was a relatively rare four-foot gauge locomotive; likely her original
appearance was similar to that of the standard-gauge 0-4-0T Vulcan shown above right (which is currently running on the
In February 1958, Carroll
Stahl—a state trooper turned toy manufacturer—purchased No. 117, and rebuilt her as an 0-4-0 with tender. Bearing the name
Durango (left), she operated on his Carroll Park & Western Railroad, a tourist line in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
During her tenure there, No. 117 appeared in the 1970 film 
The Carroll Park &
Western closed in 1972 following Mr. Stahl's death. A year later, Way Stations, Inc. of Eagle, Pennsylvania,
Meanwhile, No. 117 had passed through the hands of several
private owners. Her travels during this time make for tales as colorful as her CP&W paint scheme, so some of the following
information may be faulty. For a while she was on display—along with the two CP&W coaches—at a restaurant (possibly
She was then shipped off to the
parking lot of a leveled strip mall alongside Route 9 in Bayville, New Jersey (next to Blackbeard's Cave, a tourist attraction),
but plans to run her never materialized, possibly due to her inoperable condition, or possibly due to the owner having too
many irons in the fire. So, together with the CP&W coaches and a pile of light-duty rail, she sat there for over a decade,
neglected and decaying (she's seen above left in 1999). Evidently area residents complained about having what they thought was
an abandoned wreck sitting around, and pressured the owners to get rid of it. One tale tells of her bell having been stolen while
she was there, which subsequently showed up on eBay; the buyer arrived at the seller's house accompanied by a State Police officer.
Finally, along with the two
CP&W coaches, she was donated to the New Jersey Museum of Transportation around 2005. She has since undergone a modicum of
cosmetic restoration (to her "as found" as opposed to her "as built" configuration), and is currently on display
at Allaire State Park. She's seen at right in 2009 being moved from her prior location in front of the enginehouse to her new
permanent home at the Pine Creek Railroad entrance (below). The coaches are also being restored, with the intention of being used
(bottom two images).
Specifications
Copyright © 2010 by David K. Smith. All Rights Reserved.