Class 27 (Locobase 5970)

Data from the Yosemite Valley website (http://www.yosemitevalleyrailroad.com/MOTIVE.POWER.HTML.DIR/YVRR.Blind.Photo.html -- 3 April 2004). Works numbers were 39634 in April 1913 and 45130 in February 1917.

This railroad was built in the early 1900s to serve eastern Merced county in northern California from near Sacramento to the western entrance of the Yosemite National Park.

This Mogul was a typical saturated-steam engine (Baldwin class 8 32-D) with balanced slide valve and wagon-top boiler. The YVRR paid $17,340.18. The builder's photo shows a very tall, thin stack; a later one shows a shorter one with a screen. (With oil-firing there was much less chance of sparks starting wayside fires.)

Engine #28, delivered almost 4 years later, was probably nearly identical. It was wrecked in 1920 but rebuilt and survived to be scrapped with 27 after the railroad closed in 1945

Class 29 (Locobase 5971)

Data from the Yosemite Valley website (http://www.yosemitevalleyrailroad.com/MotivePower.HTML.DIR/YVRR.Blind.Photo.html -- 3 April 2004). Works numbers were 55275 in January 1922 and 58685 in September 1925.

When the YVRR went back to Baldwin to buy another Mogul 9 years after its first purchase (described in Locobase 5970), some things stayed the same. The locomotive had the same wheel base and the boiler diameter remained the same. But much was different: now the locomotive was superheated and had 10" piston valves. The grate was smaller as was the firebox overall and the total heating surface. Axle loading went up as did tender weight. And the price jumped more than $10,000 to $27,541.77.

#25 was bought in 1925 and looks to have been a sister to 29 (go figure the numbering scheme!).

After 20 years with the YVRR, both 25 and 29 were leased to the Southern Pacific during World War II. After the war and the YVRR's abandonment, 25 was scrapped but 29 was sold to a railroad in Northern Mexico. Here, http://www.ferrocarriles.com/steam/indice/udey350/udey350.html (3 April 2004) picks up the trail. At first used to construct the Sonora-Baja railroad, the engine soon transferred to Yucatan as SCyT's 7311-3. A long career in the Yucutan included adoption by the FC Unidos de Yucutan in 1960 and renumbering as 353 three years later. After going out of service in 1970 the locomotive idled in oblivion until it was rebuilt at the Merida shops by Jorge Gonzalez and friends.