THE FIRELESS LOCOMOTIVE
A new era arrives. A spotless Dieselis pushed into the NCR yard toreplace the Company’s venerablesteam-storage locomotives.
On one of its last working days, theRubicon, now on display at CarillonPark, pushed its successor to thefactory engine house.
With several NCR employeesaboard, the replacement enginemakes its first run across Dayton’sSouth Main Street.
The old yields to the new.The Rubicon turns switching responsibilitiesover to the modernDiesel. The transfer is symbolizedby an employee handclasp.
“The Three little Engines”
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 howmuseums are made. The Corliss engine now on display atCarillon Park labored mightily during the formative years of Americanindustry, yet more economical electric power systems eventually sent thatsteam giant into retirement at the Park. The Conestoga wagon andthe Concord coach, the Grasshopper locomotive and the high-wheeledCadillac—all served their purpose. And then, with sentimental if somewhatwhimsical ceremony, they were consigned to their final resting place.
In the summer of 1962, Carillon Park made room for what is probablyits most unusual example of antique “rolling stock.”
“The Three Little Engines” are picturedsoon after their purchase by NCR. TheCarillon Park relic, the Rubicon, ispushing the first electric express carused by The Ohio Electric Company.The exhaust stacks of all three firelessengines originally extended up thefront of the storage tanks, fully exposed,but the tanks were later givenfalse fronts so the Rubicon, The Daytonand the South Park would resembleconventional railroad locomotives.
The Dayton
The South Park
The newcomer is the “Rubicon,” one of three fi