Mesabi Iron Range 0-6-0 "Switcher" Locomotives in the USA

Class 71 (Locobase 16362)

Data from "Heavy Power for Industrial Service", Railway Age, Volume 69, No 19 (5 November 1920), pp. 798-799. Works numbers were 62500 in August 1920 and 62501 in September.

RA's report offers a useful analysis on the reasons that saddle-tanks still occupied "a prominent place in industrial switching service." in late 1920. Indeed this "unusually heavy" locomotive had "met with considerable favor in industrial service.

"The additional load imposed by the water and fuel carried [over the driving axles] increases the factor of adhesion materially.", wrote the RA author. Accepting the limitation of a small boiler, the writer suggested "the type would prove very useful in certain classes of railroad service as in coach yard work or more particularly in switching service around mine tipples."

The stubby profile was dominated by the large saddle tank whose top was level with the cab roof and nearly so with the stack. Its superheater most likely dictated the use of 11" (279 mm) piston valves.

Locobase suspects that the third Mesabi engine mentioned in the November 1920 reported may have been diverted to Standard Oil of Louisiana as its #5. The works numbers 62502 suggests as much and a late switch may have eluded the RA's editor. That locomotive wound up on the New York Dock Railway as their 47. (NYDR #48, works number 69582 in November 1924, was sold to Standard Oil as well (#7) and may have had the same dimensions and areas.)

A replacement arrived on the Mesabi metals two years later as works number 65364, produced in December 1923.

In light of the highly positive report in 1920, Mesabi's rapid disposal of its three locomotives suggests they proved unsatisfactory. The iron miner sold the 71 to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive, which sold it to Weirton Steel Company (Weirton, WVa) on 15 April 1935 as its #15.

72 and 73 joined their saturated sisters at Chino Copper in Santa Rita, New Mexico in 1929 and took road numbers 31-32. Twenty years later Chino sold the engine to locomotive rebuilder./reseller Southern Iron & Equipment.