Williamsville, Greenville & St Louis 2-6-2 "Prairie" Locomotives in the USA

Class 6 (Locobase 12185)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines, 1890, as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 20, p. 92. Works number was 14677 in January 1896.

This line consisted of 28 miles of 60-lb/yard rail connecting Williamsville and Hiram, Missouri. The 6 was sold to the 45-mile Ozark Valley in January 1915. The OV RR was abandoned 3 years later and the 8 sold to Holladay Klotz Land & Lumber.

Class 7 (Locobase 12360)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 22, p. 137. Many thanks to Russell Weisman, Senior Historic Preservation Specialist in the Missouri Department of Transportation, for his 9 January 2013 email to steamlocomotive.com that alerted Locobase to this late-career change and for his later transmittal of detailed summary of the H-K Land & Lumber Company. Works number was 16902 in July 1899.

A unusual Prairie locomotive in its combination of standard gauge and small drivers, the 7 was delivered to the WG&StL five years after that line opened in 1894.

According to Weisman, a newly reorganized Holladay-Klotz emerged in 1905 owned by Holladay's widow Mary and run by her brother Charles A Haynie. The new owners drafted a plan to expand to the northeast and link up with the St Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad at Marquand, then continue on to Perryville and across the river to Chester, Illinois.

Alas for the future of the WG&StL, the plan was "ultimately unsuccessful" and the line began to incur deficits in 1912. In 1913, the railroad defaulted on interest payments and was placed in receivership. By then the line was essentially worthless and could only be sold short to James Cochran in November 1914.

The new owners reformed the railroad as the Ozark Valley and 7 was numbered C-7. It's not clear from Gene Connelly's Baldwin tabulation if the change to a 2-8-0 arrangement happened before or after the sale. (Locobase doubts if the OVRR ever had the money to make over the C-7).

In 1918, the Lake Superior & Ishpeming bought the OVRR C-7 and renumbered it first #35, then #4 in 1924. But this light-footed engine wasn't done. In 1928, the Brunswick Lumber Company bought the engine and later sold it to Holladay-Klotz Land & Lumber Co of Missouri.

Long after it entered service in 1899, a note in Baldwin's records suggest that this was an exceptionally durable engine. A letter dated 20 October 1938 and the accompanying Extra Order (8470-1938) show that the locomotive was reworked as a 2-8-0. Such a project likely included modifications to the frame, deletion of the rear truck, perhaps a reduction in driver size.