Burleigh’s Avon Park locomotive was scrapped and does not survive
Anyone hoping to locate, borrow, or exhibit the actual machine should stop looking. The Lima construction roster for shop number 469 records the locomotive passing from the Florida Development Company to A. V. Miller of Nida (Cass), West Virginia, with a final disposition of “scrapped.”[shay-roster-469] No date is given for the sale or the scrapping, and neither has been independently confirmed, but the disposition itself is unambiguous. Reselling worn geared locomotives into Appalachian logging was routine once a Southern operation closed.
No Florida museum, historical society, or antique-engine collection was found holding the engine or any identified part of it.
What can be exhibited is the picture. G. W. Breck’s illustration “A Novel Railway in South Florida,” published in Harper’s Weekly on 15 June 1895, is in the public domain, is available in a digitized scan, and is very probably the only image of this locomotive that exists.[harpers-1895-novelty]
Practical consequence for the museum: an exhibit on Burleigh’s engine has to be built around the 1895 illustration, the magazine text, and the builder’s record — not around an object.
References
- shay-roster-469 — shaylocomotives.com. Lima Shay Shop Number 469 factsheet. 22 February 2020. https://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/factsheet/sn-469.htm
- harpers-1895-novelty — Harper’s Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 2008. A Novelty Among Railroads. 15 June 1895. harpers-weekly-1895-novelty-among-railroads.md
Related
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- shaylocomotives.com, Lima Shay Shop Number 469 factsheet (2020)
- Harper's Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 2008, A Novelty Among Railroads (1895)
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