Alleghany Iron Company 0-4-2 Locomotives in the USA

Class 1 (Locobase 12024)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 17, p. 242. See also "Alleghany Furnace, Alleghany Iron Company" in Directory to the Iron and Steel Works of the United States (Philadelphia, PA: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1892), p 31; and "The History of the Town of Iron Gate" on the Welcome to the Town of Iron Gate 1890--Gateway to the Highlands website at [], last accessed 3 November 2022. Works number was 12614 in April 1892.

Alleghany Iron Company's furnace smelted iron the approriately named Iron Gate, itself in Alleghany County in Virginia. The Iron and Steel Works Directory's listing noted the furnace would use New River coke and "local brown and fossil ores" to turn out foundry and forge pig iron. At the time, the furnace consisted of two 70 x 16 Massicks and Crooke stoves promising an annual capacity of 24,000 net tons with a third one expected to open in 1893.

This small industrial tank #1 served the furnace. Iron Gate's history says the abundant iron ore reserves in the area made Iron Gate a logical place to erect a furnace. It reports the AIC employed a work force of 250 skilled workers in the machine shop alone. By 1919, however, its fortunes declined in the face of competition from the Mesabi Range reserves and the foundry closed.

It's most likely that this was the time the #1 was sold to Fitch & Johnson Construction.