Genessee & Wyoming / Georgetown & Western 2-6-0 "Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class 6 (Locobase 12490)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 23, p. 254. Works numbers 18837 in March 1901 and 19063 in May.

Atlantic Coast Lumber Company bought these two small Moguls for their logging railroad, which had one terminus in Georgetown, SC (the other was in Lanes, SC). The G&W emerged from the bankrupt Georgetown & Lanes as a narrow-gauge road that included 36 miles (58 km) of line in 1885. Three years later, the railroad upgraded all of the railroad to standard gauge.

By the time the G&W bought these 2-6-0s, the trackage included 70 miles (113 km) of logging road. It struggled to make money, however, and was run by receivers for a decade from 1902 to 1912.

The G&W was bought by the Carolina, Atlantic & Western in May 1915, but the CA&W was almost immediately taken into the Seaboard Air Line and that railroad sold the 6 to Penn Sumter Lumber Company. The PSLC operated the engine for another dozen years before selling it to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Southern Iron & Equipment.

Also in 1915, the G&W sold off the 7 to the Conway Lumber Company.

Class 9 (Locobase 13691)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volumes 35, p. 327. Works number was 34964 in July 1910.

The original G & W was considerably smaller than the 21st-century regional conglomerate. The Rome, NY road sold the 9 to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Southern Iron & Equipment., which was only the beginning of a multi-owner career that included gainful employment for almost 50 years and a series of gigs in creatively named railroad theme park venues . In November 1919, SI & E found a buyer in the Butler County Railroad of Pine Bluff, Missouri.

Butler sold it to another locomotive rebuilder/reseller Georgia Car & Locomotive in September 1927, who passed it on to the East Texas & Gulf as their 57.

ET & G didn't hold onto the locomotive for long, selling to the third well-known locomotive rebuilder/reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive in August 1929. BR & L took the 57, still less than 20 years old, and sold it to the Tennessee & North Carolina timber road as their 206 in August 1929. The T & NC operated the 206 for about 8 years before selling it to the Smoky Mountain railroad of Sevierville, Tenn in 1937.

The Smoky Mountain struggled throughout its remaining decades of life (as told in a brief history at [], last accessed 7 January 2012). On the abandoment of the SM Rwy, the 206 was sold to dealer Grover Robbins and began a second career as a tourist or theme-park engine for the Cleveland Browns football team (Locobase is speechless), then the Pigeon Forge, Tenn-based Silver Dollar City and ultimately the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel in Chattanooga, Tenn. The "locomotive" for a series of train-car hotel accommodations, the "choo choo" is painted in electric metallic green and bright orangey red.