Shelton Southwestern / Siskiwit & Southern 2-6-0 "Mogul" Locomotives in the USA

Class Allen C (Locobase 12075)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 18, p 115. Works number was 13675 in August 1893.

This Washington State Mogul operated on this lumber line, which was owned by the William S Holmes Company. When the SS Rwy was abandoned in 1905, the 6 was sold to Ludington Wells & Van Schaick Lumber Company. This company was reorganized in 1913 as the Ludington Lumber Company.

Class W. F. Pleas (Locobase 2637)

Data from Catalogue Descriptive of Simple and Compound Locomotives built by Brooks Locomotive Works, Dunkirk, NY (Buffalo, NY: Matthew-Northrup Company, 1899). Works number was 2599 in November 1895.

Builder info from B.Rumary, 25 Kingscombe, Gurney Slade, Radstock, BA3 4TH, ENGLAND and Jeremy Lambert as supplied by Allen Stanley in March 2004.

This engine was similar to the C&NW's Mogul except that the latter had a radial-stayed firebox with the steam dome moved forward to ahead of the second driver.

According to Timothy Sasse, chronicler of the master list of Wisconsin Logging Railroads found at

[] (viewed 25 July 2004), the logging railroad ran in the upper peninsula of Michigan and was owned by WF Pleas, for whom the locomotive was named. Almost simultaneously with #2's delivery, the S&S merged with the Ashland Lumber Company to form the Ashland, Siskiwit & Iron River Logging Company. This railroad was nicknamed the Peanuts Johnson road after its first general manager.

Sasse notes the badly chequered career of the AS&IR:

"The AS&IR was notorious for all the bad accidents that occured on it. It was said by the employees that it ran three shifts; one shift ran the trains, one was going to the hospital, and one was coming home from the hospital. Things became so bitter that one of the managers of the railroad was murdered by a former employee who had been disabled in a wreck. It is known that they ran at least one log train off the end of the unloading trestle at Nash into Lake Superior, and supposedly one of their locomotives is still at the bottom of Siskowit Lake."

Sasse then points to a leading cause for the AS&IR's high accident rate:

"[T] he AS&IR had an oddball system of car couplings. Their log cars were extremely short with a pole sticking out each end. There was a link on the end of this pole. It was a ticklish process to link the cars together while they were moving. All cars had hand brakes and the locomotives only steam jam brakes."

For economic reasons, the line was shut down in 1903 and pulled up. Much of the residue wound up with the Washburn & Northwestern, which folded in June 1905 and passed along the dregs to the White River Railroad. The White River suffered several major fires, including one in 1912 that destroyed the enginehouse and five of its eight locomotives. In that same year one of the two big sawmills (Cusson) burned down. The other major mill (Iron River) went up in flames two years later and the road closed.

By this time the little Mogul had been sold to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive, which found a buyer in narrow-gauge lumber line Virginia Lumber & Box.