C&S 9 and WP&Y 69 at the Black Hills Central

Posted by Kurt Maechner on Oct 22, 2023; 12:45pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/C-S-9-and-WP-Y-69-at-the-Black-Hills-Central-tp19167.html

I know this is minutiae, but I always enjoy picking up something new in preservation history.  I was perusing old copies of the Bob Richardson's Narrow Gauge News, this time from July 1956, and discovered that C&S No. 9 was loaned to South Dakota's Black Hills Central tourist route as backup power.  Their main power was to be White Pass & Yukon No. 69 which the News noted had left Skagway by steamer on May 11, 1956.

Since C&S 9 merely sat unused in Hill City from 1956 to 1988, I never knew the original motive for acquiring the engine (and her 3 C&S cars).  

In doing some research online I also found, from the grand source of it-might-be-true-or-not-information Wikipedia, that the availability of C&S No. 9 and her 3 cars from the Burlington influenced the Black Hills Central to go narrow gauge in the first place.  

Here is a question, though, Jason Midyette's book about No. 9, One Short Season, comments that the Black Hills Central could not run No. 9 because of a 1912 law in South Dakota forbidding the use of coal burning engines.  Was WP&Y No. 69 already an oil burner in 1956?  

Also, did the BHC plan to convert No. 9, but just never did so?

Any ideas, insights, or speculations?

I have a working document chronicling the background of each of the five surviving C&S locomotives that I update occasionally when I come across something new.  I added some of the above info to what is now Update 9 if you'd like to check it out.
Kurt

Below is a photo of No. 69 and No. 9 in 1961.  The photo is from Ralph over at the ngdiscussion forum