Leesville, Slagle & Eastern 2-6-2 "Prairie" Locomotives in the USA

Class 1 (Locobase 11012)

Data from "Logging Locomotives", Record of Recent Construction #96 (Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1918), p. 22-23. See also DeGolyer, Volume 62, pp. 67 and 419 and the Mississippi Rails entry on the LS&E at [] . Works numbers were 52258-52259 in August 1919.

The LS&E was a short line operating in Louisiana - its length amounted only to 10.3 miles (16.6 km) with its headquarters located in Hawthorne. It opened on 15 April 1920 as a lumber transporter, but offered a schedule of freight and passenger traffic to its connection with the Kansas City Southern.

The pair of Prairies delivered by Baldwin (road numbered in reverse order, for some reason) most likely were the main motive power on the railway. The 2 was lettered for the White-Grandin Lumber Company, but ran on the LS&E. They were of nearly main-line proportions. 1 was an oil burner while 2 burned wood. To accommodate the latter type of fuel, the 2 had an Improved Rushton stack and a grate made up of plain bars and a dead plate.

When all the nearby timber had been cut over, the sawmill at Slagle closed down in the second half of 1930 and the line was officially abandoned in 1932.

Both of these Baldwins were later sold to equipment buyer Hillyer Deutsch Edwards.