Farewell to Number 4. Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum Conductor Trevor Hartford switches Monson #4 onto the main line as the little Forney prepares to re-arrange some freight cars for a planned night photo shoot. In her 50 years at Edaville, Monson #4 acquired more than a few "accessories" that weren't part of her kit during her working years. The folks at the museum have removed some of the hokier props, such as the ugly paint jobs and fake diamond stacks that she wore as a tourist engine. They have left some of the more practical things like the headlight, and they've kept the brass boiler bands that make her a handsome little engine, if not totally authentic.
If you want to get an idea what Number 4 looked like back in the day, you'd have to do the following: 1) Paint her solid black...no markings. 2) Remove the cowcatcher, the boiler bands, the headlight, and the dynamo. 3) Move the bell from the top of the sand dome and put it where the headlight is now. 4) Remove the Janney Couplers. That's right, the Monson had no electric headlamps and they ran link & pin couplers until the day they went out of business in 1943!
