The Fireless Locomotive

A new era arrives. A spotless Diesel is pushed into the NCR yard to replace the Company’s venerable steam-storage locomotives.
On one of its last working days, the Rubicon, now on display at Carillon Park, pushed its successor to the factory engine house.
With several NCR employees aboard, the replacement engine makes its first run across Dayton’s South Main Street.
The old yields to the new. The Rubicon turns switching responsibilities over to the modern Diesel. The transfer is symbolized by an employee handclasp.
The Rubicon, as yet unnamed, arrived at NCR in 1909 on a flat car, just as its successor was welcomed more than half a century later.
Most things yield to progress—and that, of course, is how museums are made. The Corliss engine now on display at Carillon Park labored mightily during the formative years of American industry, yet more economical electric power systems eventually sent that steam giant into retirement at the Park. The Conestoga wagon and the Concord coach, the Grasshopper locomotive and the high-wheeled Cadillac—all served their purpose. And then, with sentimental if somewhat whimsical ceremony, they were consigned to their final resting place.
In the summer of 1962, Carillon Park made room for what is probably its most unusual example of antique “rolling stock.”
“The Three Little Engines” are pictured soon after their purchase by NCR. The Carillon Park relic, the Rubicon, is pushing the first electric express car used by The Ohio Electric Company. The exhaust stacks of all three fireless engines originally extended up the front of the storage tanks, fully exposed, but the tanks were later given false fronts so the Rubicon, The Dayton and the South Park would resemble conventional railroad locomotives.
The Dayton
The South Park
The newcomer is the “Rubicon,” one of three fireless locomotives which were purchased by The National Cash Register Company in the early years of this enterprising century. The Rubicon, however, did not come to the Park from a rusty and forgotten limbo—as, for instance, the Grasshopper locomotive did. The engine is an antique, to be sure, yet its boiler and baffles had scarcely had time to dry when it was refurbished for a place of honor in the museum. Its successor, a Diesel-powered switch engine, had been delivered only a short time before the Rubicon was relieved of service and was ready to be converted into a public curiosity. In fact, the Rubicon—injury added to insult!—on one of its final trips puffed across the NCR yard and pushed its bright blue-and-yellow replacement from the flat car on which it arrived to the roundhouse.