Chihuahua al Pacifico 2-8-0 Locomotives in Mexico

Class 30 (Locobase 9628)

Data from Catalogue Descriptive of Simple and Compound Locomotives built by Brooks Locomotive Works, Dunkirk, NY (Buffalo, NY: Matthew-Northrup Company, 1899).

Builder info from B.Rumary, 25 Kingscombe, Gurney Slade, Radstock, BA3 4TH, ENGLAND and Jeremy Lambert as supplied by Allen Stanley in March 2004.

Works numbers were 2977-2980.

This troubled railroad was built to open up the northwestern pacific coast of Mexico by climbing over the Continental Divide through the Sierra Madre Occidental range and winding through narrow canyons. Construction began in 1898 and required 86 tunnels and over 400 bridges. So arduous was the route and uncertain the financing or political stability (i.e., the 1914 Mexican Revolution stopped all work for decades), the CHP only completed its 941-km (585-mile) journey from Chihuahua to Los Mochis in Sinaloa on the Gulf of California in 1961.

Purchased as construction began, This quartet of 2-8-0s represented a relatively small, but typical design.

Class 50 (Locobase 11438)

Data from "Locomotive Building," The Railroad Gazette, Vol XLI, No 15 (5 October 1906), p. 96. See also DeGolyer, Volume 29, p. 199 Works numbers were 29298, 29310-29311 in October 1906.

The Baldwin specs offers some very ...specific descriptions of conditions on the C & P. Speed demanded was 10 to 20 miles per hour. Water stations 20 miles apart (i.e. 1-2 hours steaming time at the speeds quoted), steepest grade 2%, and sharpest curve 15 degrees.

The C & P would later merge into the NorOeste de Mexico.