Rock of Ages

ID # 1,088

ROCK OF AGES

This sturdy little engine, an 0-6-0, was typical of the "work-horse" motive power used on small industrial Iines all over the United States and Canada during the Steam Age. Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1923, No. 27 was first operated by the McKeesport Connecting Railroad, then by the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Railroad and  finally, when this picture was taken, by the Rock of Ages Corporation which scrapped her in 1959. The corporation is well named. Its standard-gauge railroad consists of about ten miles of sidings at various granite quarries at Barre, Vermont. Over these tracks the Rock of Ages hauled rough granite to finishing plants and started the finished product to market. The railroad, now fully dieselized, keeps one of its nine oldtime steam engines, No. 6, on permanent display at Barre.

OLIVER JENSEN