The White Pass & Yukon Route 190 class 2-8-2s were a fleet of 11 ex-USATC S118 class 2-8-2s that worked and later sold to the White Pass & Yukon Route from 1943 - 1960.
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History[]
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War 2. On June 7, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded the Aleutians islands off of the coast of Alaska. The U.S. feared that if the Japanese set up air bases there, they could attack the west coast, so the U.S. Army leased the nearby White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad in Skagway, Alaska to help with the construction of the Alcan Highway, thus creating the 770th Railway Operating Battalion. Very soon, a various assortment of 26 locomotives (as well as 258 pieces of rolling stock) arrived on the WP&YR to aid in the construction. Amongst these locomotives were eleven S118 class 2-8-2 type steam locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Eddystone, Pennsylvania in February 1943. They were numbered #190 - 200. Each locomotive had 48 inch driving wheels, a 185 psi boiler, 16" x 24" cylinders, had a tractive effort of 20,100 lbs, and weighed in at 60 tons (107 tons with tender). Their tenders could hold up to 9 tons of coal and 5,000 gallons of water.
After the death of Japanese Lieutandant General Yasuyo Yamasaki during an attack on Massacre Bay on May 29, 1943, the Japanese retreated the following day, thus ending the Japanese occupation of the Aleutian Island. In 1944, the WP&YR was returned to civilian hands. A year after the war ended in 1945, eight of the eleven S118 class locomotives, #190 - 197, were sold to the WP&YR whilst engines #198 - 200 were sold to a railroad in Peru. Two S118 tenders would later be given to 70 class 2-8-2s #72 and #73 which would later come in 1947.
The locomotives that were under WP&YR ownership continued operation afterwards. #191, #193, #194, #196, and #197 were retired in 1951. #196 was placed in storage whilst the other four engines were sold for scrap. Engines #190, #192, and #195 continued service until their retirement in 1957, 1959, and 1960 respectively. All four survive today and 2 of them of operational. #190 was later sold to the Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock, North Carolina where it continues to operate today; #192 was sold to the Rebel Railroad in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee in 1961 (this park later went through several name changes until it became Dollywood in 1986); #195 was donated to the Skagway Museum in 1962 where it continues to stand on display today. #196 was dumped into the Skagway River to be used as a rip-rap to help stabilize the riverbed, it is currently still there rotting away.
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