Rochester Iron & Metal location in Rochester

[nydepot]

RI&M ran with Vulcan steam engines starting in the 1910s (24" gauge) and later standard gauge Vulcan steam and diesel locos. But where did they use the engines at? Off St. Paul and an NYC connection or off Mt Read with a B&O connection? The diesel was derelict by 1951. I haven't been able to pinpoint where the larger operation was that would have needed the power.

One clue was one of the Despatch Vulcan steam shop switchers was located at one of the places. Does anyone know where that was? Of course, that does not mean that the standard and narrow gauge engines were used at the same place.

Any ideas?

Rochester Iron Metal 1950a.jpg

Map-NY-0100-01.jpg

[BR&P]

The saddletanker was stored for many years on the GFR, used to see it every Saturday night when I was a kid. Can't say where they actually used narrow gauge locos tho. And while I'm not certain, I was not aware the standard gauge loco was ever actually used there (as opposed to being stored for eventual scrap or resale).

[Benjamin Maggi]

Perhaps related, perhaps not.

Last year my wife and I took a tour of the Maine 2-foot railroads and during our trip I bought a copy of the book The Maine Two-Footers by Linwood Moody. I was surprised to read that two engines which had originally run on the Monson Railroad (#3 and #4) were sold for scrap in 1944. The buyer was a junkyard in Rochester at the corner of Lyell Avenue and Mt. Read Boulevard. They were rescued by Mr. Moody in 1945 and brought to Carver, MA, and eventually became part of the Edaville collection.

I have wondered why a Rochester scrap dealer would go all the way to Maine to purchase stuff, and then not actually cut them up. The war effort was still going on. One thought might be that they hoped to resell the engines to a local place that could use them, and if RI&M actually did have 2-foot operations then perhaps the scrap yard had ambitions to sell them to the RI&M.

[BR&P]

Or the scrap yard with the locos could have been RI&M, or a related company with a different name.

[BR&P]

Note the property owner of the Mt Read location - "Adrian Realty Co", as in BR&P.