The SLSF 1350 series 2-8-2 mikados were a fleet of 7 2-8-2 Mikados originally built as 2-8-0s and were converted into 2-8-2s during WW2.
History of the Class[]
The class originally started life as 1306 class 2-8-0 Consolidations built by the American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, New York USA in 1912 as engines #1313, #1316, #1318, #1321, #1322, #1342, and #1343.
The 2-8-0s originally had Walscherts Valve gear, 63-inch driving wheels, 195 psi boilers, 26" x 30" inch cylinders, a tractive effort of 53,356 lbs., and weighed in at 125.6 tons each (207.05 tons with tender). Their tenders could hold up to 14 tons of coal and 8,100 gallons of water.
Between 1943 and 1946, the Frisco brought the locomotives to the West Springfield shops where their boilers were stretched and a pair of trailing wheels and some new frames were added onto them, thus making them into 2-8-2 Mikados and classified as the 1350 class. Engine #1342 became engine #1350, #1313 became #1351, #1321 became #1352, #1322 became #1353, #1316 as #1354, #1318 as #1355, and finally engine #1343 became #1356.
When these engines rolled out of the shops, they still kept their wheels, cylinders, valve gear, boiler pressure, and tractive effort, but the only they that changed was their weight and fuel capacity. The engines now weighed in at 161.3 tons each (265.05 tons with their tenders). Their new tenders could hold up to 18 tons of coal and 10,700 gallons of water which increased their route availability.
The locomotives continued to work hard well into the 1950s when they met their demise. In 1952, the first of the 1350s were retired and one by one, they began to drop like fruit flies, when the Frisco retired all of their steam locomotives in 1956, the last one also went off the active roster.
Surviving Members[]
Luckily, out of the batch of 7 engines, 3 locomotives managed to escape the scrapper's torch:
#1351 was retired in 1952, she was donated to the City of Memphis, Tennessee and was put on display. Later in 1983, she was donated to the Memphis Transportation Museum where she continues to sit today.
#1352 was donated to Swope Park in Kansas City, Missouri after she retired from service in 1956. Because of flooding and vandalism, the KC Park Board wanted #1352 removed, and in the late 1970s to early 1980s it was donated to Smoky Hill Railway and Historical Society provided that the group to remove it from the park. The Missouri Pacific Railroad (MoPac) refused to allow its rail to be cut for a temporary turnout, so the movers constructed, for lack of a better description, a "vertical frog and vertical points" to lift the locomotive over the rails and then onto the MoPac mainline. After its removal from Swope Park, Smoky Hill Railway and Historical Society kept #1352 in an industrial park in Riverside, Missouri, where it suffered flooding on at least one occasion. Cash-strapped Smoky Hill Railway and Historical Society sold the locomotive to Ted Leman, and he moved it to Illinois for restoration and operation.
#1355 was put on display in Pensacola, Florida in 1957 after she retired the year before and she's currently sitting there today.
Gallery[]
#1355 currently on display at Pensacola, Florida where she's been sitting since 1957.
#1352 currently at the American Steam Railroad awaiting restoration.
#1351 currently on display at the Memphis Transportation Museum.
#1342 before she was rebuilt as #1350