NCR helped Dayton meet the 1913 flood emergency. The Company’s powerhouse—equipped with the giant Corliss engine which is seen today at Carillon Park—supplied the stricken city with electricity.
Moreover, the hard-working Rubicon was sent north on the streetcar tracks to help haul away flood debris.
With the Diesel-electric, no time is lost re-charging the tank. The engineer’s cab is comfortably heated in winter. Automatic couplers, front and rear, increase employee safety. Powerful air brakes control the engine itself and air hoses can also be coupled to towed cars. Operating cost is only a fraction of that required for the old “chuffers.”
Fireless Engine Slighted in Rail Lore
The steam storage locomotive does not figure prominently in the colorful literature of railroading. Confined to the modest task of shunting miscellaneous cars about remote factory yards, there was no Casey Jones to give it romance. Nor was there a lusty fireman or a wandering hobo to immortalize it in song. It is known that an obscure “Toonerville” type of road near New Orleans employed a fireless engine as early as 1835—recharging at each end of the track. Also, a number of fireless engines were used around paper mills and munitions factories, where sparks from conventional engines could have led to fire and cataclysm.
The South Park, sister engine of the Rubicon, edges up to the NCR powerhouse. The photograph is undated, but the gleam of the engine indicates that it hadn’t seen too many years of service.
The Rubicon is one of the last of its breed—perhaps even the last of its particular design. But sporting new black paint and fresh gold lettering, it has found a measure of immortality—albeit without balladry—at Carillon Park, among other relics of America’s industrial past.
