Other Jordan Products

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This website has been archived from TrainWeb.org/JordanSpreader to TrainWeb.US/JordanSpreader.

Other Jordan Products
Not to many people are aware that the O. F. Jordan Company also built rail equipment other than the Spreader, These include Wedge Plows of both single end and double end type , a Track Oiler and a Ballast Cleaner.

Jordan Wedge Plows
In the early 1950's-1960's, Jordan tried to market a Wedge Plow. This plow looked very much like previous offerings by the Russell Car & Snowplow company. The main difference was the fact that the Jordan plow used an all welded car body, but the Russell was all riveted. Thus this is one of the main spotting differences. Jordan Wedge Plows also had the brake gear mounted on the rear of the car, and not the roof. As per advertisements, Jordan offered their Wedge Plow in either single or double track models, and with a flanger mounted ahead of the rear truck or a drop nose flanger. It might be possible that Jordan received the patents from Russell when they went out of business, or if this was just a spin off of there plow. Supposedly only 8 Jordan wedge plows were built, however I do beleive this was higher. A photo has shown up of plow DAFX SN88, which is an identical twin to SN87 below. New York Susquehanna & Western also has a double track plow, #93, another twin of this design except double track. Until I see more evidence though, I will not put them on the roster below.

Click here for a walk through Jordan Wedge Plow SN87

Jordan Wedge Plows
Maine Central #90, In service
Canadian National 55614, In service
Boston & Maine W3750, scrapped
Chesapeake and Ohio 914020, In service (Originally SP20?)
Chesapeake and Ohio 914021, Built 1961, In service (Originally SP21?)
Chesapeake and Ohio SP 23, Built 1962, Disp. Unknown
Chesapeake and Ohio SP 25, Built 1965, Display, WNYRHS, Renumbered 914025
US Army SN87, Built 1953, Arkansas Railroad Museum
US Army SN88, Unconfirmed
NYSW 93, Possibly former US Army?, Unconfirmed

This Jordan print is the proposal print for the B&M and MEC Wedge plows, dated 6/53. It looks to be a design based off of the original US Army wedge plows Jordan built. There are a handful of differences between the print, and what would be B&M W3750 and MEC 90, built in 1954.

C&O 914021, Saginaw, MI, 10/1992. D. Schmidt Photo

More photos on the "Photos" page

Jordan Push Plows
This is yet another area lacking information. Jordan built a set of Wedge/Push plows for the Illinois Central Railroad, built on gondolas. These plows had a very high nature to them. It is very much possible Jordan just built the plows and attached them to the gondola's supplied by the railroad. So far there are at least eleven Jordan plows list in the Illinois Central / Illinois Central Gulf / Chicago Central & Pacific (CC) roster. These plows were of the X-80xx numbering series. Illinois Central also has a Wedge Plow, # 101225 which is a Jordan push plow mounted on a three bay open hopper.

A builders photo of IC X-8046. from the collection of John C. LaRue Jr.

Jordan "Twin-Type" Snowplow
This is the one machine that almost NO history can be found on: the Twin Type. This plow appeared in a 1953 advertisement but that's about it. We are not even certain if it was even built! The Twin Type was marketed as a plow for a road that didn't have the ability to turn equipment, thus it had plows on each end with a long central operators cabin. The jordan Twin Type used a pair of nose blades identical to those found on the Type A spreader, along with a pair of wings behind each one. In 2014 we were able to acquire the original Jordan plans for the Twin Type. It also turns out, Jordan proposed another variation of the Twin Type, with plows only and no wings, as well as a single ended plow based on the Twin Type. The plans for these are presented below.

The Jordan "Twin-Type" Snow Plow. Railway Age advertisement

The Jordan plans for the Twin Type

This is the Jordan double ended snowplow, without wings.

The single ended Jordan plow based off the Twin Type design.

Jordan Track Oiler
The Jordan Track Oiler was a machine that came out in the early 1930's. The point of the oiler was to do just that, oil track joints in the days before welded rail came about. This was also an anti-corrosion method. The oiler looks just like a track speeder but a shy longer.

It also had a cart it pulled behind to hold oil. It was powered by a small four cylinder engine. Supposely, this machine was also able to pull a standard sized tank car to hold more oil. The oil was sprayed to each side of the rail web, and also had extra hoses to spray oil where the sprayers could not reach. So far we have seen examples of Track Oilers in livery for Illinois Central and Missouri Kansas Texas.

A Jordan Track Oiler. from the collection of John C. LaRue Jr.

Jordan Ballast Cleaner
In 1945, Jordan made a Ballast Cleaner. This was truly an odd looking piece of equipment. Very little is know about this machine, other than the fact that only one was built (to the best of our knowledge to date), This unit ended up going to Atchison Topeka & Sante Fe Railway in 1945 and was numbered 199210.

ATSF 199210 in East Chicago Indiana. from the collection of John C. LaRue Jr.

Another view of the 199210, but in working position. from the collection of John C. LaRue Jr.

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