Newburgh & South Shore 2-6-0 "Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class 30 (Locobase 12798)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 27, p. 294 Works number was 26167 in August 1905.

The 7-mile N & SS served the Cleveland, Ohio terminal area as a belt line. US Steel wholly owned the line, which opened in 1904. This Consolidation showed up a year later and after 30 years of undoubtedly rugged duty, was scrapped in 1935.

Class 31 (Locobase 5398)

Data from table in May 1916 issue of Railway Mechanical Engineer (RME). See also data from DeGolyer, Volume 53, pp. 158+; and EJ&E 11 - 1938 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Works numbers were 42201 in July 1915 and 43249-43250 in April 1916.

Also known as the South Shore Belt Line, the N&SS served industrial sites in the Cleveland area. Only seven main-line miles long, it was completed in 1904 as a wholly owned railroad of the US Steel Corporation. Its railbed bore heavy 90 lb/yard (45 kg/metre) rail and presented N&SS trains with 2 miles of 1% grades and 2 miles of 1.15% grade.

A photo of #31 published on the Cleveland Memory website ([], visited 18 February 2003) shows a stubby, big-boilered Mogul that looks like a switcher with a leading truck. But it had a superheater and big-time 12" (305 mm) diameter piston valves and constant-lead radial valve gear.

The N&SS sold 31 to locomotive rebuilder and reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive in 1936, which sold it to Youngstown Sheet & Tube. Apparently, YS & T soon sold it to the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern because it appears in the 1938 edition of that railroad's diagram book.

32 went to American Sheet & Tinplate in the same year. The N&SS was the first Ohio railroad to retire all of its steam locomotives, accomplishing that turnover in 1947. 33 was part of that changeover, being retired in 1946.

In 1951, the Bessemer & Lake Erie took over ownership. Declining business culminated in the closure of the Cuyahoga Steel Works in 1984 with abandonment of the line coming 2 years later. (Information from Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website [], visited 18 February 2003)