{"id":4754,"date":"2026-03-29T13:16:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4754"},"modified":"2026-03-29T13:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:16:55","slug":"switching-the-asphalt-plant-at-waterloo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/29\/switching-the-asphalt-plant-at-waterloo\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching the Asphalt Plant at Waterloo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Reader<\/a>
Reader steam locomotive #108 is seen hard at work switching the Berry asphalt plant located in Waterloo, Arkansas. If you look closely, you’ll spot a man standing in the field of tall grass, apparently taking some notes. I’m speculating that he’s the companion of the photographer as I see no reason for a crewman to be in that location.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some years ago I had posted another photograph of the #108<\/a><\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, I have no information regarding the date -or- the photographer. Although I think it very likely to have been A.E. Brown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4754"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4756,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions\/4756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}