File:Rock of Ages Quarry "Hercules" steam locomotive (Baldwin 0-6-2T) (Graniteville, Vermont, USA) 1 (23065204981).jpg

This is a coal-burning 0-6-2T steam locomotive (nicknamed "Hercules") on display at Rock of Ages Quarry in Graniteville, Vermont, USA. It was built in 1912 by Baldwin Locomotive Works and used by the Barre and Chelsea Railroad in Vermont and New Hampshire for the next 40 years. It was subsequently used to head trains at the Rock of Ages granite quarry from 1953 to 1957, when it was finally retired.

Info. from signage at the site: "This saddle tank steam engine is the last of five such steam locomotives built for the Barre and Chelsea Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Co. between 1889 and 1912. These locomotives, all of which were later sold to Rock of Ages, were specially designed for use on Barre Hill by the mechanical engineers of the Barre and Chelsea Railroad and the Baldwin Locomotive Co. Characteristics of the so-called saddle-tank steam locomotive are their short wheelbase, enabling them to take sharp curves; emplacement of most of the engine's weight over the drivers, making for more traction; the water tank's position as a saddle over the firebox; and the location of the small coal box, handy to the fireman. Because of the low fuel capacity, the locomotives have a resultant short range of operation."

"This particular engine, which for many years bore the proud name of Hercules, was built in 1912 and operated until 1953 over the Barre and Chelsea Railroad, predecessor to the present Montpelier and Barre Railroad. It was then purchased by Rock of Ages for use on the company's private railroad. Our railroad has eleven miles of track, fifty flat cars, twenty-seven grout cars . . . and now one diesel locomotive . . . replacing the three steam locomotives still owned by the company. Along with its older sister, # 5, known at one time as "The Monarch", and old # 27, a standard-type switcher, Hercules was retired late in 1957. Locomotives # 5 and # 6 are similar to the first locomotives built in America one hundred and twenty-five years ago."

Rock of Ages quarries Devonian-aged granodiorites of the Barre Granite (Barre Pluton) (the name is pronounced "berry"). The granodiorites are part of a calc-alkaline pluton formed by partial melting of Silurian-Devonian sedimentary rocks that had been folded & regionally metamorphosed during the Acadian Orogeny in eastern America. The Barre Granite forms part of the New Hampshire Plutonic Series/Suite and is ~380 million years old (= early Late Devonian or mid- to late Middle Devonian, depending on which time scale one uses). The rocks contains quartz (gray), feldspar (white), and biotite mica (black). Barre Granite is extensively quarried throughout the Barre Granite Quarry District in the vicinity of the towns of Websterville and Graniteville, south of Barre, in far-southern Washington County, north-central Vermont, USA.

Photo of Barre Granite: