Steam & Excursion > A significant if not well remembered locomotive

This locomotive got around. She was originally built by Baldwin in 1925 as a stock locomotive for export to Cuba, but instead was sold to the Veterans Administration Hospital at Perry Point, Maryland, in January, 1932, as their number #1000. From there, she went to Camp Davis, North Carolina as U. S. Army Quartermaster Corps #5631, and was later renumbered #6932. In 1948, she headed to Alabama where she became Mobile & Gulf #97.

The Mobile and Gulf was a marginal shortline at best, with its origins as a logging road with construction beginning in 1913 by the Baskett Lumber & Manufacturing Company of Fayette, Alabama. The railroad acquired the name Mobile & Gulf in the late teens, but was not incorporated until 1925. At its peak, the railroad operated 31.9 miles of track between Fayette and a connection with the Mobile & Ohio at Buhl, Alabama. The Brown Wood Preserving Company built a creosote treating plant in Brownville, Alabama, about 1930, and this would become the largest source of the railroad's traffic. The sawmill at Fayette was destroyed by fire in 1946 and two years later the track was abandoned between Brownville and Fayette, leaving the railroad with 11 miles of track. #97 joined the roster as the railroad lost over a third of its length. Due to the marginal finances of the line, the Mobile & Gulf would become the last of the shortlines in the south to operate steam, and #97 continued in operation into 1970.

After her retirement by the M&G she was sold and headed north into territory closer to her original home, becoming Ocean City Western #97 at Ocean City, Maryland. #97 shared the roster with an SW1 diesel that later went to the Wilmington & Western.

After the Ocean City Western quit in the late seventies, #97 was sold again and went to French Lick, Indiana, to the French Lick, West Baden & Southern. #97 operated through the Hoosier National Forest between French Lick and Cuzco, Indiana, for several years, before she was parked for good. After years of operating for cash strapped owners, she has been described as "beyond worn out." Her boiler is shot, and her running gear is in need of complete renewal. She is parked in French Lick today, minus her tender and missing her smoke stack. Without a new boiler and a major infusion of cash to rebuild every other part of her, she will never run again. The FLWB&S is now part of the Indiana Transportation Museum and still hauls passengers, albeit behind diesels, to this day.

#1 - #97 is seen in Brownville, Alabama, on September 3, 1968, just under two years before her last run on the Mobile & Gulf, scanned from a negative credited to James H. Woods.

#2 - On June 3, 1979, #97 has arrived in French Lick, Indiana. She is still wearing the faded paint of the Ocean City Western.

#3 - #97 is nearing the end of her operating career on August 4, 1985, as she passes through the Hoosier National Forest near Norton, Indiana. She would be parked for good in a couple of years.

Both color photos are Kodachromes from the camera of George Redmond

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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