Here ii one of Dewey's unique oscilloiing cylinder lype steom locomoiim, which opcroicd with
о
woddling motion, ond could go olmost onywhere — even off the Irock. Note wotcr tonk over boiler,
fuel bin behind cob, huge spark-arresting stock and simple drive connection between cylinder ond
front wheel. — 'Photo from collection of Michael Dunn.)
North Carolina’s
Made-At-Home
Locomotives
Now tlio colorful I idle “Deweys”
have disappeared, hut 70 years ago
they were doing a hig joli in the low¬
lands of I'asteru North Carolina.
By MICHAEL J. DU NN. Ill
When you think of locomotives, do
you think of Goldsboro? Hardly. At
least not in 1969.
Yet that is exactly what loggers and
quarry operators and other small loco¬
motive users were accustomed to doing,
fro*-’ the I890’s into the 1920’s. For
the little known fact is that a manu¬
facturing firm right in Goldsboro.
N. C.. put out scores of steam locomo¬
tives that found owners all around the
Southeast.
The company, still very active as a
foundry' and steel fabricator, is Dewey
Brothers and its locomotive building
days spanned a period of perhaps thirty
years, beginning in the 1890’s. Its loco¬
motives were cither standard or nar¬
row gauge, but usually small and light,
designed not so much for railroad use
as for operation on private trackage
where duty was lighter and track more
flimsy and uneven. The engines were
mostly used in logging, in quarrying
and on construction projects.
Served Loggers
Development of a locomotive build¬
ing plant in eastern North Carolina
came as a natural outgrowth of intense
logging activity in that part of the
state, and the desire of an enterprising
machine shop to participate as much as
possible in supplying the needs of the
area’s logging operators.
The Dewey firm had been es¬
tablished in Goldsboro in 1885 by
Charles Dewey. It was successor of
sorts to the recently burned-out W. F.
Korncgay & Co., maker of cotton
presses and similar machinery. Dewey's
business combined a foundry-repair
shop with a store for mill supplies.
Its shop put out its earliest locomo¬
tives for its sawmilling and logging cus¬
tomers. and from that time (in the
1890's) throughout the rest of its loco¬
motive building days, most parts —
even such minor items as journal
brasses or wheel bearings — were cast
in Dewey’s own foundry or fabricated
in its shops. Boilers and a few-
specialized items like pressure gauges
or roller chains were the only items
purchased from outside suppliers.
Colorful Contribution
Information on both the earliest and
last locomotive sales and total output
figuies is lacking. Production fell into
three categories, though. A few loco¬
motives were conventional rod engines,
reciprocating steamers of the type
standard on most railroads. However,
Dewey's most colorful contribution to
locomotive history, and the bulk of its
output as well, were two other, unusual
types: an oscillating cylinder style and
a geared, chain-driven variety.
Ihe oscillating cylinder design ap¬
peared first, certainly by 1899. and was
Dewey's ingeniously simple answer to
the problem of transmitting power from
cylinder and piston to wheels. Con¬
ventional reciprocating steamers had
stationary cylinders down low at the
front of the locomotive; connecting
their pistons, as they went in and out.
with the rotating wheels meant a com¬
plicated scries of crossheads, guides
and joints, plus a complex valve and
reverse gear, to meter steam to the
cylinders and control locomotive direc¬
tion.
To eliminate a lot of the mechanism
of such locomotives. Dewey designers
kept the stationary steam chests down
near the wheels, at the front of the
locomotive. But they put a hole in the
outside of each steam chest, and pul
into the hole a large tube with slots in
it. Into this hole-and-tube they inserted
a trunnion, that resembled a huge pipe
T. The cylinders and piston were in the
outer, crosswise portion of the T. the
part that did not fit into the hole-and-
lubc. The T was free to rotate in the
lube, and when slots in the tube
matched slots in the T’s stem, steam
was admitted to one or the other of the
cylinders. The other end of the piston
rod was connected right to the front
drive wheel. That way the T could not
rotate 360 degrees, but rock just a few
degrees, enough for the various sets of
slots to match in turn, let steam into
THE STATE. FEBRUARY 1. 1970
13