A special history study conducted for the National Park Service by Gordon Chappell.
Locomotive No. 3713 is, of course, one of that first group of Lima Pacifics, a P-4-a that cost the company $100,000. She was inspected by C. W. Bruening at the Lima plant on December 21, 1934. As originally delivered, the locomotive had a metal shroud concealing her sand and steam domes and had smoke deflectors alongside the smokebox (some varieties of which were colloquially referred to as "elephant ears"), and a single, deck-mounted air pump on the pilot deck. As thus delivered, the engine had a semi-streamlined appearance.
Locomotive No. 3713 and her sisters went into service hauling the most important passenger trains on the Boston & Maine, eventually serving between Boston, Massachusetts, and Bangor, Maine; between White River Junction and Troy, New York; between Worcester, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine; and between Springfield, Massachusetts, and White River Junction, Vermont. She was designed to operate at a normal speed of 70 miles per hour. She carried sufficient coal to pull and heat a 14-car train about 250 miles, and enough water to last about 125 miles.
When the Boston and Maine took delivery of its second order of Lima Pacifics in 1937, it sponsored a contest among New England schoolchildren to name those 10 engines and 10 other passenger engines. The contest was open to any pupil in any community along the railroad and included students from kindergarten to the final year of junior high school. The railroad promised to paint the names on the sides of the locomotive and to attach to the locomotive a plate with the name of the boy or girl who suggested the name, as well as the name of his or her school. The contest elicited more than 10,000 names for the 20 engines. A 14-year-old named J. Schumann Moore of Lynn, Massachusetts, a student at Lynn's Eastern High School, suggested the winning name for No. 3713: The Constitution. Other winning names for the 10 Lima Pacifics were for No. 3710, Peter Cooper No. 3711, Allagash; No. 3712, East Wind; No. 3714, Greylock, No. 3715, Kwasind; No. 3716, Rogers' Rangers; No. 3717, Old North Bridge; No. 3718, Ye Salem Witch; and No. 3719, Camel's Hump.
Certainly The Constitution was among the more dignified names. Moore said he selected the name because it signified "the backbone of our country. Appropriate especially in that the railroads are the backbone of our transportation system." On December 11, 1937, the railroad held a christening ceremony in Boston's North Station. The railroad would hold two more such contests, one in 1940 and one in 1941, to name eight additional engines. For all 31 named engines, the engine name and the name of the contest winner were inscribed on a pair of large name plates mounted on the running boards on both sides of each engine above the drive wheels. Thus engine No. 3713 and her sisters acquired names, a practice more typical of the 19th than the 20th century in railroad operation.
After the country entered World War II in 1941, No. 3713 pulled many a 15- to 20-car troop train during the next four years. It was apparently during these wartime years that, for reasons unknown at present, the Boston and Maine removed both the shroud atop the boiler of these five locomotives, and the smoke deflectors alongside the smokeboxes. They may simply have been removed for routine servicing and, in the press of wartime conditions, were left off to avoid the time and labor of putting them back. About 1944 or 1945, the company added a second air pump on the pilot deck.
It was probably after the war that No. 3713 and her sisters were repainted and relettered in a racy style sometimes referred to as "speed" lettering because its slanted script gave an impression of speed. The "speed" lettering replaced the standard rectangular herald adopted by the Boston & Maine in 1927.
Following the war, No. 3713 and her sisters returned to handling the regular passenger traffic. Among their patrons were young campers headed for an outing in the northern woods. Toward the end of her working life, No. 3713 was equipped with special steam pipes and used to melt snow in the yards of North Station, and still later as a stationary steam power plant. She was last called into service during a flood. Whereas floods shorted out the axle-mounted traction motors of diesel-electric locomotives, the fireboxes of many steam locomotives rode high enough to be above flood waters so that steam locomotives could push through flood waters that diesels dared not enter. No. 3713 made her last run in 1958.
When F. Nelson Blount acquired No. 3713, he exhibited her first at South Carver, then Pleasure Island at Wakefield, Massachusetts, in 1960 and 1961. From 1962 through 1969, the engine rested on exhibit first at North Walpole, New Hampshire, then at Bellows Falls, Vermont, after which Steamtown loaned the engine to Boston's Museum of Science. The Boston and Maine's Billerica Shop overhauled the locomotive in 1969, repainting her in the original 1934 herald (pattern of 1927).
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In 1984 No. 3713 was moved, along with the rest of the Steamtown USA collection, from New England to Scranton, Pennsylvania. The locomotive would later become a part of collection of Steamtown National Historic Site.
In 1995 the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society entered into a partnership with Steamtown National Historic Site to raise the funds necessary to return No. 3713 to operating condition.
After the roof sheet has been fitted up, we will bolt it in place to maintain the alignment of the backhead sheet while we fabricate both of the exterior side sheets. To expedite the firebox work it is planned to send the exterior wrapper side sheets and the interior firebox side sheets out to a contractor to add the necessary bends and to drill the holes for the staybolts. We will be drilling the rivet holes on site, to allow for better alignment to the mud ring. A new throat sheet liner, 1 inch in thickness needs to be fabricated and installed to replace
the existing 5/8”liners to bring the boiler into compliance with the Federal Railroad Administration regulations. This repair requires that larger diameter flexible staybolts, sleeves and caps also be installed to the stays adjacent to the washout plugs for the thermal siphons on the throat sheet.
The new interior firebox door sheet has been fitted up and staybolt holes have been drilled and it requires only some final tweaking at the door hole to match the exterior backhead sheet. We will then begin the fit up of the 7 other pieces (crown sheet, 3 thermal siphons,
tube/throat sheet, left and right side sheets). Once all these pieces are fit up, they will be removed and the new roof sheet and side sheets will be riveted in place. While all of the other work is ongoing another contractor John Scondras of Scondras Portable Welding & Engineering will be making repairs to the crack in the 3~ boiler course and the 2 cracks in the reinforcement plate at the dome opening. He will also be installing a flush patch in the first boiler course to remove multiple cracks from an older unused feedwater supply port which has multiple radial cracks emanating from the center. The Boston & Maine Railroad had made repairs previously to both of these defects without success, as we all know cracks never grow shorter !
The B&M 3713 is in the backshop of the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA and can be viewed by the public during regularly scheduled shop tours. If you have made a donation, you are able to see what your support is accomplishing!
