McCloud River 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class 14 (Locobase 13046)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 29, p. 249 Works numbers were 30850-30851 in May 1907.

Logging Mikados weren't quite as common as logging Prairies, but they weren't scarce either. The 2-8-2 layout gave a lightly built railroad an engine that carry a big boiler and the cylinder dimensions to grapple with the 3 1/2-4% grades while arching around 15-deg (253-ft/77-metre radius) curves. A later sister was delivered with a superheater; see Locobase 13047.

The Mikes obviously suited the railroad, as they remained in service until the mid-1950ss before being scrapped in 1955.

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Class 18 (Locobase 13047)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 51, p. 24 Works number was 41709 in September 1914.

A repeat of the basic Mikado design bought by McCloud in 1907 (Locobase 13046), the 18 replaced some of the boiler tubes with superheater flues with little loss of combined heating surface area. A slight increase in the firebox heating surface coupled with the superheater made for a much more powerful engine. Other changes included the adoption of 12" piston valves and Walschaert's outside constant-lead radial valve gear.

McCloud was proud of this new engine and made up a special train with the 18 at its head to appear in San Francisco at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. By the later 1930s, the 18 had acquired a spark-arresting shako on its stack.

After more than 40 years of service, the 18 was sold to the Yreka Western. It sat idle and boarded up in the desert for three decades before being repurchased by a later MCRR incarnation for museum service. In 2011, the locomotive had been leased from the state Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway to the Virginia & Truckee in Nevada. The 18 had a boiler reconstruction and was declared fit to resume service in July 2010.