Hello, I was wondering if anyone might be able to point me to some Whitcomb resources. I am on a quest to find a very particular photograph and hopefully aquire a quality copy. My trail started some many months ago when the building industry recession had given me a lot more time from regular work. The picture is of my grandfather and his fellow employees standing in front of Texas Mexcian Railway locomotive no. 501 (Whitcomb 60009). It is a standard gauge box locomotive of 660 horsepower, 65 tons. It was manufactured in July 1939. I have a newspaper clipping of the photograph in my possession, but it is now falling apart, thus my search. Let me also say the newspaper clipping had two photographs the second had no employees and was a three quarter view. I started with the Rochelle IL newspaper, Rochelle Museum and Rochelle Library. They had very little information. However, it was interesting to see some unused builder plates when I was there. I enjoy inquiring items on Ebay and keep a fairly good watch. Last January, by pure luck a 8 x 10 glossy copy of the second photograph without employees was for sale. I was quite happy to win the bid. This was stamped on the back with the name of Louis Marre among others. I being new to railroad history had no idea who this was. I decided to contact Classic Trains Magazine. They were wonderful and forwarded my letter to Mr Marre. Mr Marre wrote to me immediately and informed me that he indeed owned the photograph at one time. He suggested that I contact the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvannia. He was kind enough to give me another picture of loco 501 with a new paint job from some years later. RMoP searched their documents. No luck. RMoP advised writing to the California State Railroad Museum. (I live in Los Angeles and went on an outing to see it in February prior to my letter - great musem.) CSRM just got back to me a week ago. Although they did not have the photo, they had lots of other interesting information. In fact, I am quite certain the negative or a good glossy photo must be in some collection in the country based on the information forwarded. The staff there kindly gave me several photos in pdf format of builder pictures from the same period, July 1939, maybe the same day. Apparently, 20 photos were taken of Texas Mexican Railway locomotives based on a photo catalog from Whitcomb in their library. CSRM files included 7 photos. Four of the other 20 pictures include employees. So to wrap up, does anybody know a collector or museum that might have these pictures. It would be great to have a big, shiny copy of the picture with my grandfather and one of his locos. His name was Ellwood Cederholm. As a side note, he did not move to Pennsylvania when the factory moved and his many years at Whitcomb ended around 1950.
Andrew
Andrew