Steam & Excursion > Evolution of ten wheelers on the T&P

T&P owned a heck of a bunch of 10-wheelers as they along with early 2-6-0's constituted its  road power.  The 10 wheelers grew a little larger as time went on allowing 2-6-0's to be taken out of service and completely eliminated when 10 2-8-0's showed up.  But the 4-6-0's continued to be a mainstay on trains.

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A more recognizable form of the engines is presented in these pictures.  Bottom picture is of the 316 currently on the roster at Texas State Railroad.  It has an interesting past.  It was sold to the Paris and Mt Pleasant railroad in east Texas. One day the owners of the railroad laid off eveyone and just walked away from the property.  The engine and another just sat there for several years.

The City of Abilene had been after T&P for along time to give them a steam engine but, T&P didn't have any.  Made aware of the engines location and situation it was somehow obtained by T&P, run through the Ft Worth shop for spiffing it up and numbering it 75 for Abilene's 75th anniversary and it was put on display.   As most do, it fell from favor and care and started looking awful.  It was gladly given to the Texas State Railroad where it sat for a while then was refurbished and put into service as their  # 201.  A while back it was relettered  T&P  and numbered back to 316.
Currently it is out of service awaiting boiler work.

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316 is a class D-9 engine.  Many of that class were greatly modernized.  As equipped with 63" drivers and slide valves they were saturated engines.  A  rebuild would change the engines greatly.  New frames allowed 67" drivers, piston valves, walschaerts valve gear and superheaters  modernized them as much as possible.  Their new classification was D-9 1/2s.  A few  outlived the roads famous 2-10-4's.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/16 18:46 by tomstp.

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Neat comparison. Any idea wha determined which locos received stack lights?

Cheers,
Jack

Here are a few recent photos of 316. These are from her debut as T&P 316 in 2012. Earl Knoob can be thanked for restoring her original number and paint scheme.

1) Departing Palestine
2) Crossing the Neches
3) Shoving the only other surviving T&P locomotive (610) into the Palestine engine house

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations

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Jack,  I think that most T&P locos ended up with stack lights so that the fireman could gauge his firing at night.

 

Seven of the D-9's even ended up serving their country in World War 2.   In 1941,  Engines 285, 287, 357, 314, 301, 310, and 333 became engines 1-7 on the Claiborne and Polk Military Railroad in Louisiana.
Three, #1 (285), #2 (287) and #5 (301) survived until the end, with #2 making the last Camp Polk to Camp Claiborne round trip on August 17, 1945 as the war neared its end.

Great, awesome little mill.  I miss her.

Stack lights were a staple on the T&P, Frisco and MoPac.  Doesn't look like much, but it does help the fireman see how much smoke he's making at night.

As engines were changed from coal to oil the stack lights appeared  on all power on the T&P .  The first few orders of 2-10-4's came from the factory without them but were immediately added upon set up for operation.. 

In the first photo (T&P number 164) what is the thing behind the stack? Also it looks like the cylinders don't
​line up with the smoke stack. What's going on here?

C.P.Huntington Wrote:
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> In the first photo (T&P number 164) what is the
> thing behind the stack? Also it looks like the
> cylinders don't
> ​line up with the smoke stack. What's going on
> here?

Appears that an extended smoke box has been applied.  The "thing" behind the stake is the orginal stack's location, also notice the builder's plate is located below the orginal stack location.  Also the lead pony wheels line up under the orginial stack location.

When shown to others that stack and "thing" behind it always bring about the question "what is that?".  SR-RL's answer is as good as any.

I would think it had to do with a high ash content of the poor coal used at that time and the need to not have to empty the smoke box on runs.  No doubt it was a problem.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/16 08:48 by tomstp.

I got a request from a friend of mine to show class D-10 engines and D-ll to really fill out the evolution of 10 wheelers.  So, here they are.  The first two pictures are of the same class of D-10 engines of which there 40 engines (361-400) and the 388 was the last steam engine active on the T&P pulling a train from Shreveport to Alexandria, La where its fire was dropped on Feb 20, 1952 ending all steam operations.  These little devils had an amazing TE of 40,256 lbs.  Half of the class were equipped with elesco feedwater heaters  and were good firing engines heavily used in east Texas and Louisiana for all kinds of work, locals, through freights, work trains etc.  They had 63" drivers and 185  lb. boiler pressure.

The crown jewel of 10 Wheeler's was the D-11 class with 67" drivers and 200 lbs boiler pressure.  These engines could handle 11 heavyweight passenger car trains in Louisiana and really roll them.  416  (411-420) is shown here.  They were also  catch all engines hauling freight and passenger trains up to their tonnage level from Marshall TX., to New Orleans..

By the way look at the small flanged stack on 416 an engine bought in 1912,  Was this a pre-curser to the Flanged stacks on 2-10-4's, 4-8-2, 2-8-2, and 4-6-2's ?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/16 11:35 by tomstp.

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