TA&G #401 and #402

[George Lortz]

In my 20 years of searching for former-Monon photos, I have never found any of the TA&G #401 and #402.  TA&G #401 was former-Monon #578 and #402 was #576.  I bought this poor-quality negative on eBay.

The Monon sold these 2-8-2 locomotives to the TA&G in June, 1948.

George L.

[Jim Osborne]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but by 1947-48 weren't even Monon's newest steamers pushing 20 years old? How was the line able to find such a ready market for offloading such tired old equipment?

[Eric Reinert]

To call the J-4 Class Mikados tired would be to do them a disservice. They were all rebuilt with new boilers, feed water heaters and trailing truck boosters, making them pretty modern engines. I am sure they had time left on their boiler certs too, so there would be no need for heavy class repairs for a while. Roads like the TA&G certainly would have viewed these as bargains on the second-hand market since they were still setup to operate and maintain steam in 1949.

Eric Reinert