Mississippi Export 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class 38 (Locobase 11965)

Data from NdeM 1950 Locomotive Diagrams Standard Gauge supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also Mississippi Rails' entry for the ME railroad at []; and DeGolyer, Volume 64, pp. 307+. Works number was 53238 in May 1920.

This locomotive was originally to be called the Mina Carlota and bear the number 2. Its operator was to be Cuban-based Davison Sulphur & Phosphate Co. But the chemical company's Cuban pyrite mine, which was to open in 1921, did not. According to Davison, the Cienfuegos, Palmira & Cruces Electric Railway and Power company made it difficult to transport DSPC's ore to the docks.

Davison did not accept the locomotive and it languished in storage for 18 years. In 1938 Baldwin sold it to locomotive recycler/reseller Birmingham Rail & Locomotive. BR&L found a buyer in this Moss Point, Miss operator.

After four years, the MER sold the 38 to the Nacional de Mexico, which placed it in its own class G-21 and numbered it 1220. It ran until its retirement in March 1957.