Steam & Excursion > A "who am I" question

I suspect I'm missing the point of this H.L. Kelso photo by seeking to identify the locomotive, or even the type/class of locomotive pictured.  With the piston rod missing, coupler askew, numbers gone from the headlight numberboards, and smokebox looking rusty even in black and white, odds are this machine has turned its last mile under its own power.  Its unique identity is not important to the meaning of the photo, as its plight is symbolic of thousands of other steam locomotives of every shape and size that faced the ultimate in the 1950's.  The sense of impending doom is further heightened by the silhouette against a dreary overcast sky...

...which through the magic of Photoshop I have somewhat thwarted in order to bring out details on the side of the locomotive, because the soul-less, rivet-counting nerd in me just has to know what he's looking at.  The negative envelope gave the photographer's name and identified the subject as "SP" - the train indicators lend some credence to that - but there was no other information as to what, where, when, etc.  The locomotive is clearly an Alco 2-something-something, but the builder's plate has too many layers of whatever aluminized slop SP coated their smokeboxes with to read the serial number.  Anybody have an idea as to what class of SP (?) locomotives this engine might belong?  Photo courtesy the Southern California Railway Museum.

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Could it be a USRA light Mike? The sandbox sure says USRA to me. Now, did SP have any? Pretty sure UP did. Also, the builder number looks fairly legible.

Train number board should be a good clue to some railfan.
jb

Did any SP 2-8-0s get outside valve gear?

Agree with CPR_4000 - it's a USRA light Mikado with a Sweeney stack, UP/OSL class "MK-Special" and I'm going to say it was one of the OSL locomotives in the 2535-2554 number series based on the step arrangement:
https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/dn25xf/union_pacific_mikadospecial_2537/

mike woodruff
north platte ne

 

swaool Wrote:

> I'm going to say it was one of the OSL locomotives in the 2535-2554 number series based on the step arrangement:

That would require a builder's number in the 60235-60239 or 60330-60344 series.  I can convince myself that I'm seeing 6033_ on the builder's plate, but that last digit is too indistinct to be confident.  In any case, thanks for the insights!

What an interesting photo with the all those planks strewn about on the other side of the tracks. Like a tornado came through. Reminds me of a picture of the remnants of the torn down roundhouse at Tiburon. Had the planks all over the place like that. 

As to the type of locomotive, I'm going to guess that it's an SP "little deck," the F-1 class of 2-10-2's that were considerably smaller than those of the later classes.  The appearance of the earliest F-1's, as far as I can tell, matches the above photo, including the front-mounted bell, which was moved there after the headlight had been relocated to the smoke box door. 

The earliest F-1's were built by Brooks-ALCO; most of the later ones by Baldwin.

I couldn't find works numbers for the ALCO engines.