{"id":4767,"date":"2026-04-12T11:37:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4767"},"modified":"2026-04-12T13:52:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:52:39","slug":"mystery-reader-rr-steamer-403","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/04\/12\/mystery-reader-rr-steamer-403\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery: Reader RR Steamer #403"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the photographic prints that was in the collection of railroad images that I inherited from Ron Findley was the one below of a 2-6-0 Mogul steam locomotive. It’s lettered for the Reader Railroad, but was a locomotive I’d never come across before. There was no information on that photograph, and I was stumped. So I scanned and posted the photo on Mike Palmieri’s Facebook group “Mike’s Mostly Louisiana Railroads”<\/em> along with my request for information about this locomotive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Reader<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As hoped for, several readers were aware of this locomotive, and below are some of the responses about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Howe: <\/em> Yes, Reader 403 is correct. It’s a William Monypeny photo from the Louis Saillard Collection. (From the envelope sleeve): Reader Railroad No.403 2-6-0, Reader, Ark.
Ex. St. Louis Southwestern #403, (built by) Alco-Rogers (construction) #37535 (on) 4\/1905
To: Reader RR 3\/13\/1937
Retired: 8\/31\/1945
Also from Tony:<\/em> A.E. Brown photographed the remains of the same locomotive still at Reader in 1952 in derelict condition<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Locke:<\/em> 403 was sold for scrap soon after Tom Long bought the Reader in the 1950s. He was alarmed by the decrepit condition of the railroad as a whole. He had #11 reconditioned, bought #108, and had 403 scrapped. In the early 1960s, he purchased 2-8-0 #1702 and had it rebuilt and modified from it’s Army appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to these folks, and to others that posted on this as well. The #403 is no longer a mystery. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the photographic prints that was in the collection of railroad images that I inherited from Ron Findley was the one below of a 2-6-0 Mogul steam locomotive. It’s lettered for the Reader Railroad, but was a locomotive I’d … 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":[26,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-proto-research","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767","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=4767"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4776,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4767\/revisions\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}