The largest customer on the Reader Railroad was the Berry asphalt refinery located in Waterloo, Arkansas. In Ron Findley’s photo album I found an 8″x10″ photograph of the road’s #108 laboring in her switching duties at the plant. She’s another 2-6-2 “Prairie” steam locomotive, similar to the #11 that we saw last week. A product of Baldwin in 1920, she went through several prior owners before arriving at the Reader.

Some years ago I had posted another photograph of the #108 while she was at rest near the roundhouse in Reader. That post also has some information on the history of the locomotive. Interestingly, I had never noticed before in that image that the locomotive was wearing a wood-burning stack, and some boards had been attached to the side of the fuel oil tank in the tender. I’ll speculate that the engine had been temporarily “back dated” for a role in one (of several movies) that were filmed at the Reader, and that featured their trains in them.

Unfortunately, I have no information regarding the date -or- the photographer. Although I think it very likely to have been A.E. Brown.