From the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library. Note the "CT" suffix on the car number in the bottom photo. Does anyone know what this is for? I see it on USRA boxcars from other roads, including the EJ&E. Thinking Chicago Terminal, but that's just a guess.
Around 1901, the Santa Fe commenced ordering a series of the largest locomotives in the world. First came ALCo decapods, then Baldwin created the first 2-10-2s, and various Baldwin and homebuilt Mallets followed about a decade later. But in 1899 and 1900, they had ordered quite a large number of 2-8-0 consolidations from Baldwin, Rhode Island and ALCo-Richmond. These were uninspired, well under 200,000 pounds, with piddling little boilers. These twentieth century monsters began appearing even before the last of the nineteenth century teakettles had been delivered, so basically the consolidations were obsolete right out of the box. The road had a lot of branch lines, but as the new power displaced these engines, their elderly engines just weren't retiring fast enough to make room for them. And by the time they did, the road found their 2-6-2 prairies were better suited to the duty. Meanwhile, through the twenties, the road's switcher fleet was aging. The typical 0-6-0 types of the era just didn't impress management or crews. At the same time, passenger cars were going all steel, and gaining weight fast. Where before the road had traded Atlantics for Pacifics at La Junta, now Pacifics were needed east toward Chicago, and the road's fifty-one new 4-8-2 mountains were handling expresses west. This created a surplus of 4-4-2 Atlantics, none of which were yet thirty years old, and many of which were still troublesome compounds. The consolidations had boilers that didn't steam well. The Atlantics had boilers that did. Mounting those boilers on the chassis of the consolidations allowed them to center their weight over the drivers, so they could eliminate the lead trucks. The result was fairly heavy, very capable switchers that could move tonnage better than they ever had as road locomotives. And since the 4-4-2s had improvements like lighting generators, they came out very well suited for passenger station switching. Number 1461, a compound of the 1452 class, donated the boiler in 1928. 752 only rode a little higher afterward; the consolidation's drive wheels were but seven inches bigger than the Atlantic's trailer truck wheels. Over two dozen conversions were built. Management called them hybrids. Crews called them mongrels. Call them what you will; most of them lasted into the 1950s, and some were among the last steam switchers on the Santa Fe.
A flexible boiler? Is that possible? No, not really. Most Santa Fe Mallet articulated compounds had ridiculously small boilers. That's why they were so unsuccessful; they had too many legs and didn't make enough steam. They looked big enough, but the forward end wasn't boiler. There was a device called a reheater in there, which warmed up the steam between the high pressure and low pressure cylinders. Even so, there were a lot of leaks. And they really didn't solve the problem of putting weight on the forward drivers for stability and traction. On paper it looked efficient. On the road, they were weak and unreliable. A lot of roads moved a lot of tonnage with modern articulated locomotives built between WWI and 1949. The Santa Fe wasn't one of them. They bought quite a few Mallets between 1909 and 1911, and by 1915 they were cutting the bigger ones in half. They never ordered a new articulated again. 1798 and 1799 started out as 2-8-8-2s. They wound up using all their original boilers, but their chassis were cut in half. The reheaters were scrapped. The resulting Mikado could start as heavy a train as one of their 2-6-6-2 prairies mallets, and despite having smaller drivers, move it considerably faster.
Redondo Jct in Los Angeles, CA. Santa Fe 2-6-2 #1010 is the only surviving locomotive that participated in "Death Valley" Scotty's record-breaking run across the Santa Fe system in 1905, and was later used in Ronald Reagan's "Death Valley Days" recreation of the Scott Special. This Prairie locomotive was built by Baldwin in 1901 as a 4-cylinder Vauclain compound and simplified in the 1920s. Now at the museum in Sacramento. Roger Puta photo, March 1972.
Another from the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, AT&SF 117320, new 03/1923 by AC&F. An interesting design, with what appears to be wood forms affixed to a steel skeleton.
