Cape Girardeau Northern 2-6-0 "Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class 11 (Locobase 13735)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 45, p. 255. See James Baughn's Pavement Ends installment on "Cape Girardeau's most obscure landmark," SEMissourian, posted 24 March 2010 and retrieved from [], last accessed 16 January 2012. Works number was 41168 in February 1914.

Note at the very top of the specs indicates the true origins of this Mogul design: "As Spec'n C1532 Herewith roll of blue prints covering Mogul locomotives built for this Ry. Co. by the American Loco. Co. which are to be followed in designing new loco. in all essential details where replacement is necessary." When the instruction says "replacement", Locobase construes the word as "substitution.". See the specs (p. 257, #8) for the most explicit description of a cab seat Locobase has yet encountered. Moss was an acceptable stuffing, it seems.

Baughn reports that Louis Houck, "accidental railroad tycoon", built the Cape Girardeau & Chester because the towns north of CG had no railroad links at all. The ICC valuation tells a more involved story - suffice to say the 6 railroads in the CG area all had Houck's fingerprints on them.

"Houck's railroads had a dubious reputation," Baughn adds, "for low-budget construction and unsafe operations." He quotes from railroad commission reports of 1898 and 1904 that score management for their shockingly unsafe conditions.

The CGN's extent would peak at 105.3 miles and its fortunes crested in 1912, not long before this Mogul and the two 4-4-0s shown in Locobase 13734 were ordered. Attempts to sell the line to the Frisco fell through when the latter road entered receivership in 1914. Baughn offers a poignant what-might-have-been assessment of the lost opportunity:

"History may have been much different if the Frisco had successfully taken over the railroad. Located on high ground away from the Mississippi, the tracks between Cape and Perryville would have provided an alternate route during frequent river floods. Fruitland, Pocahontas, Oak Ridge, Daisy, Biehle, Lithium, and other small towns along the route might look very different today if they still had an active railroad."

The 11 was sold to the San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf (the "Sausage" or "Link" route) as their #18, but apparently the SAU&G didn't find it useful and let it go to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive.

BR&L turned it around in January 1925 and sold it to the Louisiana Southern as their 13. (LS #14 was the essentially identical Alco delivered to the CGN as their #9 after leaving the Schenectady works as 53978 in September 1913 and also sent through BR &L in 1924-1925.)