Pere Marquette 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class C (Locobase 9285)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

The PM finally caught up to the other railroads in terms of the power dimensions and size they adopted for the last Consolidations they bought. In 1910 they took delivery of 15 engines (works #48006-48010 and 49321-49330) and added 10 more in 1911 (50049-50058). Locobase suspects these had piston valves and Walschaert gear from the beginning, but believes the superheaters were added later.

A good, medium-weight freighter, this design served the PM and the C & O until 1951.

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Class C-1 (Locobase 9283)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

Works numbers ran 28397-28401, 28404-405, 28676, and 28758-28762 when Alco delivered this class in 1903. Although similar to the big-grate C-2s delivered at around the same time, these had cylinders measuring 1" greater in diameter (but still the relatively short stroke) and a bigger boiler. Consequently, when they were superheated, the shops were able to pack more tubes and flues into the barrel. Sporting a useful adhesion weight as well, these 2-8-0s operated until the end of World War II.

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Class C2 (Locobase 4130)

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

According to Rumary-Lambert, works #3767-3772, produced in November 1901 became road #345-350. But that's way out of sequence with the rest of Brooks production. Locobase guesses the actual production date was February 1901.

#3844, manufactured in May 1901 was delivered as 344. 4028-4035 (November 1901) were numbered 330-337 and 4092-4097, from December 1901, had road #338-343

This is one of series of Consolidations operated by the Pere Marquette. This class was fitted with what was described by Railway Age as "Belpaire wagon top" boilers.

This particular group, including the 6 superheated in the 1920s (see Locobase 9282) left the road relatively early in 1935

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Class C2 (Locobase 9279)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also DeGolyer, Volume 28, pp.8-9. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

Works numbers ran 25270, 25303-25304, 25326, 25354-25355, 25366, 25387-25388, 25410 in March 1905 and 25447-25449, 25487, 25530 in April.

Similar in size to the Alco's Brooks Works Consolidations delivered to the PM in the same year, these Baldwins formed part of a larger order that included fifteen identical engines for the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton (Locobase 6565). Compared to the Brooks locomotives (Locobase 11461), these had slightly smaller fireboxes with more arch tube area (22 sq ft) contributing to the direct heating surface.

Modifications were limited and included boring out the cylinders to 20". The class was not superheated for some reason and were scrapped in the mid-1930s.

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Class C2 (Locobase 11461)

Data from "Locomotive Building," The Railroad Gazette, Vol XXXVIII, No 1 (6 January 1905), p 5. Works numbers were 38673-38692 in 1905.

These Consolidations were virtually identical to the Baldwins shown in Locobase 9279, although they had a few more boiler tubes.

Their later superheated configuration appears in Locobase 9278.

NB: Evaporative heating surface area estimate derived by adding reported direct heating surface to calculated tube heating surface.

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Class C2 - superheated - 273 (Locobase 9278)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

In 1905, Alco delivered 20 locomotives in a single batch (works #30673-30692) as saturated-boiler engines. Some time later, the railroad superheated the entire class to a moderate degree, which likely added years to this class's utility. In addition to superheaters, they were equipped with "universal piston" valves, that is, piston valves fitted in the slide-valve casting.

(Locobase suspects that 290 -- the lone holdout described in the 1929 book as having 290 2" tubes -- was later modified as well.)

The last of the group was retired in 1948.

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Class C2 - superheated - 298 (Locobase 9280)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

According to the diagrams, Alco delivered these 15 locomotives in a single batch (works #30631-30646) as saturated-boiler engines in 1905, just before the locomotives shown in Locobase 9278.

Some time later, the railroad superheated the entire class to the same specifications as the C2s shown in Locobase 9278. The big difference was 2 1/2 ton higher weights of adhesion and of the engine overall.

The last of the group was retired in 1948.

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Class C2 - superheated - 330 (Locobase 9282)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

Locobase 4130 describes this class as saturated-boiler locomotives delivered by Brooks in 1901. Two more classes built to the same large-grate design would follow in 1903 and 1904. All were superheated in the 1920s to the same dimensions and fitted with piston valves. But for some reason, most of the 1901 class was not modified and the ones that were lasted only a few years.

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Class C2 - superheated - 501 (Locobase 9284)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

This 1910 class (Alco-Brooks works #47052-47063) fit the pattern of the 1905 small-grate 2-8-0s (see Locobases 9278 & 9280) and were superheated in the same way (although the heating surface area was smaller because they had two fewer tubes). Like most of the other superheated 2-8-0s, this class operated into the late 1940s.

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Class C2 - superheated - big grate (Locobase 9281)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008).

Alco delivered these 16 locomotives in two batches (works #27645-27650 in 1903 and 28788-28796, 28402 in 1904) as saturated-boiler engines. Compared to the classes Alco would supply to the PM in 1905, this set had much larger grates, but shorter-stroke pistons.

Some time later, the railroad superheated the entire class to a moderate degree, which likely added years to this class's utility. In addition to superheaters, they were equipped with "universal piston" valves, that is, piston valves fitted in the slide-valve casting. The 1903 engines were lighter by about 1 1/2 tons.

Like the other superheated PM Consolidations, these operated into the 1940s, the last being retired in 1944.

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Class SC (Locobase 9290)

Data from PM 3 1929 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also See also "Pacific and Consolidation Locomotives for the Pere Marquette", Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Volume 26, No 1 (January 1913), p. 24-25. Roster information developed by Art Million and Tom Dixon and presented on the Pere Marquette Historical Society website ([], accessed 1 March 2008). Works numbers were 50059-50083 in May 1911.

Immediately following the C class (Locobase 9285) were these larger Consolidations from Alco's Brooks Works in Dunkirk, NY. Cylinder volume grew compared to the Cs, and the heat-supply systems were scaled up accordingly. The grate was slightly larger, but the firebox heating surface was considerably greater, aided by 30 sq ft (2.79 sq m) of arch tubes, and the boiler now had more tubes and flues of larger diameter.

As might be imagined, this latest, largest, and most powerful class of 2-8-0s remained in service up to the last moment of steam in 1951.