A little train history/mystery. I could use your help

[Bill Piche]

Wow. Having gone over the photo and compared with the painting image point by point, I'd have to say this is the same train or one exactly like it.  The only discrepancy I see is in the painting there is a bar across the front that seems to be missing from the photo but I'm guessing over the life of a train that kind of detail could easily change.

So, where is this train now? I'd love to know if it was sitting in the grass somewhere in 1960/61.

Beatrice is at a Six Flags America park in Maryland converted to a diesel hydraulic drive...it is no longer powered by steam.
Both Beatrice and Albert were still at the plantation in the early 1960's.

Keith

I noticed a few Six Flags parks have gutted steam locomotives on their property. Great America outside Chicago has a couple of nice 30 or 36 inch 2-4-0 shells that they push around with a diesel "tender".

Can't say I remember seeing a gutted steam engine running when I was at the one in Maryland in 2006. Then again, I was there for the wooden roller coaster that was moved there from Paragon Park up our way (Mass) decades ago.

Looks pretty complete, though...

[Bernie Perch]

Jeff,

I believe your father used artistic license on the front nose plate.  In the painting, the locomotive is quite stripped of all goodies and the front plate would have been one of the first things to go.  I feel he understood locomotives (the locomotive in the painting is perfectly proportioned) and felt the front needed an accent and he painted in a nose plate and arbitrarily put the Number 3 on it.  The locomotive could have been on an abandoned siding at the mill.  It also spent some time in a junk yard and it could also have possibly been painted there.

Bernie

[Jeff Chumley]

Thanks Bernie,

Dad didn't work that way. He wasn't a train guy at all but he was a very good draftsman and would have drawn what was there. He would not have added the nose plate. I'm sure what you see is exactly what was there. I'd love to find out just where it was when he painted it. According to my mother he never painted in Louisiana and she is probably right. She did say that unlike later in his career he may have taken several years to build up enough paintings for a show. It could have been painted earlier. The style looks more like his earlier work from 1956 or 57.

[Jock Ellis]

Back when this was painted, Jeff's dad probably could have bought it for less than it cost him for the water colors. He certainly could paint!