Boebert@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (01/17/86)
The Davenport Locomotive Works is described by Bruce in _The Steam Locomotive in America_ in the following curt fashion: "The Davenport Locomotive Works began locomotive building in its plant in Davenport, Iowa, in 1900. Its product in this line has been in the smaller sizes, largely for export and industrial use, without any notable developments." The locomotive you describe is called a tank locomotive, and is designated in the Whyte classification system with a "T" suffix, e.g., 0-6-0T. They are self-contained in the sense that they carry their fuel and water on board as opposed to in a separate tender. The water (which is the high-volume consumable in a steam locomotive) is carried, in the case you described, in a tank wrapped around the boiler; such a configuration is called a "saddle tank." The other two alternatives are called "side tanks," in which the water is carried in rectilinear tanks on either side of the boiler, and "well tanks," in which the frame is made as a square tank. To my knowledge well tank locomotives were never made in the U.S., but were popular overseas. The LGB large-scale model locomotive is from a Krupp well-tank prototype. Tank locomotives were restricted in range and used for switch engines and in industrial applications. In the latter they did things which today are done by tractors and fork-lifts, pulling small trains of material from place to place in a large factory. A particularly heavy user of such locomotives was steel mills. They also were used occasionally in large construction sites, in which temporary rails would be laid in order to move large quantities (by the standards of the time) of earth. Because of their small size (some narrow-guage Davenports being almost of amusement-park dimensions), tank locomotives have been very popular as models. Perhaps the most popular, at least to my generation of model railroaders, was a B&O prototype for a handsome 0-4-0T saddletanker called a "Docksider," (because it worked the dockside in Baltimore) or a "Little Joe." Models of this were made by the thousands by the Varney company, and modified (today you would say "kit-bashed") into all kinds of strange forms. Kemtron had a conversion kit which would change the little fellow into a remarkably nifty little cab-forward 4-4-0, just the thing as a road engine for a 4x6 HO layout. Earl