Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber Company 2-6-2 "Prairie" Locomotives in the USA

Class 68 (Locobase 14934)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 65, p. 40. See also Lawrence S Earley, Looking for Longleaf: The Fall And Rise of an American Forest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), esp. pp. 243-244; and "Long-Bell Mill Cuts Out: Plant of Calcasieu Division at Lake Charles Closes After Operating for 22 Years", Southern Lumberman, Volume 133, No 1727 (3 Novembe 1928), p. 41. (Thanks to Everett Lueck for his 7 April 2024 email noting the 68's original owners.) Works number was 54077 in November 1920.

Earley's comments on the immense Calcasieu forest are worth repeating in part. He tells us that the stand of longleaf yellow pine bounded by the Sabine River on the west, the Calcasieu on the east, and the Red River on the north, covered 4,500 sq miles (1,165,500 hectares or 2,880,000 acres) and was so densely grown that harvests yielded 12,000 to 30,000 board feet per acre. The wood from these woods "became a trademark for all that lumber buyers wanted from longleaf lumber--strength, durability, and great size." (p. 243).

On p. 244, Earley describes the "deeper and more indelible scars" that remained from the decades of logging that cleared virtually the whole forest. The book describes the impact of 19th and 20th century logging on the 92 million acres (37,352,000 ha) (or 143,750 sq miles/372,614 sq km) of longleaf pine ecosystem that once stretched from Virginia to Texas.

Southern Lumberman described a typical closng to a long era of cutting: "After twenty-two years of continuous operation at Lake Charles, La., the Calcasieu division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company cut its last yellow pine log Friday, October 12. [1928]"

The tube length given in the specs generates a low heating surface area compared to the heating surface areas stated in the specifications. Locobase notes that the heating surface area for the tubes alone calculates as 821 sq ft compared to the 930 sq ft shown. He's pretty sure the tube surface area is miscalculated in the specs. However, the next locomotive in Volume 65 gives the same values but shows a tube length two feet longer, which yields too high a tube heating surface. Adjusting the length to 15 feet (4.57 m) even brings the calculated and stated values close to each other..

One of the hundreds of locomotives supporting the intense extraction of timber was a superheated variant of a widely used Baldwin logging Prairie design whose saturated boiler had 200 tubes. With superheat came the use of piston valves to supply steam; these measured 9 1/2" (241 mm) in diameter.

(Everett Lueck states that the original owner was Bradley-Ramsey before the Long Bell bought them out. Southern Lumberman's 1928 account descibed the sequence of name changes as follows: "[In 1885], "At that time there were six small sawmills in operation at Lake Charles. One of the six was located where the present Long-Bell mill now stands. This sawmill was purchased from Capt. Daniel Goss in 1885 by a group of Michigan lumbermen and was operated by them until 1887 as the Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber Company. Then in 1887 a reorganization took place and the name was changed to the Bradley-Ramsey Lumber Company. This company built the present mill. Long-Bell bought the mill in 1906, operating it under its former name, Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber Company. Several years ago the name was changed to the Calcasieu division of the Long-Bell Lumber Company."

68's owner, Long Bell Lumber renumbered it 681 and relocated the engine to the Longview, Portland & Northern in Oregon in 1922. It later moved to Independence, Ore to work on the LP&N's Willamina & Grand Ronde. In 1953, Long Bell sent the engine south to work on the Mexicano del Pacifico as their 7.