Steam & Excursion > Barely 15 Years Old And She Has Come Home For The Last Time!

She was the second to the last of the famous fleet of cab-in-the-rear articulated Lima Superpower locomotives built for the Southern Pacific in 1939.  She was power style and grace when she arrived in Texas to be set up and was still a formidable piece of motive power when she was transferred in the early 1950's to SP's Modoc Line in the West.

With all this going for her, why do we find her in 1955 parked outside of the SP shops in Sacramento with lines of other modern SP articulated engines?  Well, of course we know that the coming of the diesel had spared none of the classes of SP steam power and even the vaulted AC-9 engines were quickly set aside to make room for the new more modern diesel power arriving on nearly a daily basis.

All too soon, in July of 1955, she would arrive at the scrap yard where she would be broken apart never to be seen again.  Sad.

Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/17 03:47 by LoggerHogger.

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Yes a sad picture; but even then she had the class to
pose, rods down.  Thanks for posting.

Awful lot of sadness in the '50s.  My favorite road, Frisco, parked their 4500 class 4-8-4s with less than ten years service.  They were kept in a "strategic pool" along with some other engines, but mainly just sat around and decayed.  Some of the 4500s sat into the mid 60s with equipment trust plates still on them. They finally met their end, but at least 4 of them survived as display engines.  What a waste.

Boy, that's a neat looking engine.  I'm not sure that I've seen shots of these before, so thanks for posting it, regardless of its setting.

- Jeff Carlson

Any idea why Lima built the "backwards Malleys"? Weren't most (all?) of the cab-forwards Baldwins?

*****<Any idea why Lima built the "backwards Malleys"? Weren't most (all?) of the cab-forwards Baldwins?>*****

They were built as coal burners for service in New Mexico and far west Texas.

lynnpowell Wrote:
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> **********
> They were built as coal burners for service in New
> Mexico and far west Texas.

True, but Baldwin built a lot of coal burners . . .

 

You can credit the relationship that Lima had built up with SP in the construction of the Daylight engines to the fact that Lima was awarded the contract for the AC-9's.  Yuo can see a flavor of the Daylight in the pilot and skyline castings found on the AC-9's.

Martin

Were the AC9's converted to oil when they were sent west?

Like the Pennsylvania T-1 currently being brought back, the extinct SP AC-9 will one day be built new and live again!

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> Were the AC9's converted to oil when they were
> sent west?


They were converted to oil shortly after the Dawson coal agreement expired in late 1949. When the SP purchased the El Paso and Southwestern in November 1924, part of the sale included an agreement to purchase Dawson, NM coal for a period of 25 years. The AC-9s ran on the Rio Grande Division as oil burners beginning in 1950 (using ex C&O tenders off the UP) until reassigned to the Salt Lake Division in 1953.

Same engine in the same spot, but evidently not the same day:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,3572511,3572841#3572841

I love the look of these engines, but I read somewhere that they were slippery compared to the cab forwards.