4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" Steam Locomotives in the USA

Class 152 (Locobase 14979)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 65, p. 350; and Engine Drawing Card 6897 (3 January 1920) at [], last accessed 12 October 2020. See also Ray Bonnell, "The Tanana Valley Railroad: Some history and Engine No. 1", Sketches of Alaska in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (nd) archived at [] . (Thanks to Jacob Woods for his 30 December 2025 email noting the incorrect cite from the Baldwin specifications archive and Wes Barris for getting Locobase to take another look at the question.) Works number was 53296 in June 1920.

The Tanana Valley Railroad's founder, Falcon Joslin, envisioned a Trans-Alaskan road stretching from Fairbanks to Nome, says Ray Bonnell, but "real-world considerations meant the completed railroad reached only 39 miles, as far as Chatanika" The railroad reached Fox and Gilmore in 1905 and end of track at Chatanika in 1907. Revenues steadily slipped, however, and the line declared bankruptcy in 1917.

Much of its main line would taken over by the Alaskan Engineering Commission for its standard-gauge Anchorage-to-Fairbanks portion. The AEC would add a third rail between Happy and Fairbanks, making the Chatanika branch a dual-gauge line.

It was about this time that the AEC bought the new 4-6-0. It was based on a standard-gauge design of 15 years past, but resized for the three-foot width. SMU DeGolyer's image of the original Engineering Drawing Card prepared 3 January 1920 showed a superheater in 13 - 5 3/8" flues containing 148 sq ft of element heating surface area. This apparently was dropped.

Its firebox measured just 23" (584 mm) wide. The boiler was pressed to 190 psi and the valves actuated by outside radial valve gear. Baldwin's spec sheet advises that the locomotive was to be "suitable for operation in temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit."

When the Chatanika branch was closed in the 1930s (put out of business by motor traffic, says Bonnell), the 152 went dormant for a decade until the Alaska Railroad bought it in 1942 to operate on the White Pass & Yukon.

At the end of World War Two, the 152 began its second career in tourist service. The WP&Y sold the engine in 1945 to the Antelope & Western of Roseville, Calif as their 3. In 1963, the Camino Cable & Northern of Hermanie, Pa bought the 3 and owned it for twenty years. Keystone Light Railway Products bought the locomotive in 1974 and sold it in March 1975 to the Huckleberry Railroad in Flint, Mich as their 2.