Nostalgia & History > The largest McKeen, Southern Utah RR

I finally got around to building a web page about Southern Utah Railroad. Part of this little road's claim to fame is that, along with having a large Shay locomotive, they briefly operated the largest McKeen car built. It's body was 55 feet, 3 inches long, and it had a 300 horsepower engine on the only six-wheel power truck that McKeen built.

Research has found that the car was built for Southern Utah but they never started paying for it. There was a flood that cut the line just six months after the McKeen was delivered on January 1, 1917. Utah Railway was in operation by this time (mid 1917) and SU was only being used to move coal to the east, and haul passengers between Price and the coal mines. After the flood, SU was shut down and the car was apparently used very briefly by Utah Railway. By this time, McKeen's plant in Omaha was also shut down and since no one else wanted the big gasoline car, it was stripped of its 300 horsepower engine and power truck, which was sold as part of McKeen's liquidation. The body was set on the ground at Utah Railway's shop at Martin, Utah and became a locker room for shop employees. It remained there until 1990 when Morrison Knudsen came in and cleaned up the shop area for their own use to maintain the Utah Railway SD40s. The McKeen was sold, cut in half and moved to private property. Last I heard, there are no plans (or money!!) to preserve or restore the McKeen.

Here is a photo that was sent to me more than 20 years ago, along with a drawing of the car lifted from Railway Mechanical Engineer magazine.

Here is the web page I have built:

http://utahrails.net/utahrails/southern-utah.php

Don Strack
http://utahrails.net

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Don, thanks for advising us about that site. Nice work. One little (3') inconsistency has crept in, however: is #100 55' 3", or 58' 3" long? Gerry

Both measurements look ok. One is the length of the car body and the other to the coupler faces.
Roger B

Thanks - I have seen the carbody at Martin, but never knew what the car looked like when it was new - it was a good-looking machine! - - - - - - - - JLH

Thanks for this info, Don, and the images, too.

Looking at that truck, I wonder how much time went into retaining dimensions with the wedges in those side rods. I can imagine that whole arrangement was a nightmare if the trackage wasn't just really well-maintained.