Steam & Excursion > From Mainline To Shortline, This Steam Locomotive Did It All!

Not all steam locomotives that started out their life on a mainline railroad for whom they were designed, finish out their careers there.  Here is an example of one such locomotive that had such a varied careen path.

Built by ALCO at their Manchester plant in December 1907 as the very first locomotives for the SP&S these 5 5 engines were copied off the Northern Pacific L-9 class of 0-6-0's. These became the A-1 Class on the SP&S and this engine was the #2 of the 5-engine order.  When delivered these engines were lettered for the SP&S predecessor road, the Portland & Seattle Ry.

SP&S #2 was most often assigned to switching cores in the yards at Portland, Oregon for the next 30 years after her delivery.  This was the task for which she had been designed for in the first place.  However, in July 1946, she had been replaced by a new ALCO diesel purchased by the SP&S which resulted in her being rendered surplus by The North-Bank Road.

In July, 1946 #2 was sold to the City Of Prineville Ry of Prineville, Oregon and she was re-numbered as #7 for that road.  In this assignment she would haul freight over the 20-mile shortline between Prineville and Prineville Junction just north of Redmond, Oregon where the COPRy interchanged with her old home railroad, the SP&S.  In this view taken in July 1947 we see #7 under steam at the COPRy shops in Prineville.  The shine on her boiler jacket once given her on the SP&S has been replaced with the dirt and grime of shortline railroading.

#7 would last in service on the COPRy only until 1950.  It was then that, for the second time in her life, she was replaced by an ALCO build diesel locomotive.  With no other buyers looking for a 45 year old 0-6-0, #7 was finally scrapped in 1952.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/19 03:48 by LoggerHogger.

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What is the locomotive behind #7?  Were there any logging railroads that brought logs from the woods to the mills at Prineville?

Locomotive behind the #7 is the City of Prineville #6, specific for which should be as follows:  Rogers 2-8-0, c/n 5657, built 1901. Cylinders 23.5x32, Drivers 55", Weight 182,000 lbs. Built as Great Northern #1102, to City of Prineville July 1945. Scrapped 1955.

And no, there never were any logging railroads built out of Prineville.  At least one company planned to build one, but by the time the U.S. Forest Service started selling timber off the Ochoco Forest near the end of the 1930s the lumber companies pretty quickly figured out that trucks could do the job much cheaper than trains.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV