South Pacific Coast 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class 13 (Locobase 11793)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines, 1888, as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 14, p. 188. Works number was 6157 in April 1882. See several sources that cover the SPC, especially [] . Troubles on the Connotton Valley Railroad in Ohio meant that several locomotives ordered in February 1881 were either deferred, diverted, or cancelled. Three were delivered to the CVR (Locobase 11792), but the one originally named Congress Lake was diverted to the West Coast to this northern California narrow-gauge line.

Charlie Comstock's page notes that the railroad connected the Bay area (first from Newark, then from Alameda) with Santa Cruz "....right under the noses of the Central Pacific . Starting out in the Santa Cruz mountains, the SPC RR brought lumber down from the mountains and produce from the farms in Alameda and Santa Cruz counties to the port of Santa Cruz.

Comstock explains that "James 'Slippery Jim' Fair and Alfred 'Hog' Davis are described by O. L. "Montey" Dewey as 'large-bodied, self-made men.' Taking on Leland Stanford and his "Big Four" partners, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker, was not a job for the faint of heart. Fair and Davis were more than up to the task. Historian Clyde Arbuckle describes 'Slippery Jim' thusly, "Fair, who combined indescribable rudeness with incredible cunning, entertained no fear whatsoever of the "Big Four" individually or collectively." These were big, wealthy, burly bastards who could kick ass and take names."

Ultimately, the SPC covered 104 mile extending south from Newark (later Alameda), California on the Bay. In 1887, Fair amalgamated several railroads (most quite small) into the South Pacific Railway and almost immediately leased it to the Southern Pacific for 55 years.

Twenty years later, just as the SP was converting the system to standard gauge, the area was hit by the 18 April 1906 earthquake that led to the levelling of most of downtown San Francisco. This delayed the transfer of 13 to the Nevada & California until October. Three years later, the 13 returned to the SP to operate on its narrow-gauge lines until 1915, when it was leased to the Lake Tahoe Railroad & Transportation Company. Eleven years later, the SP converted the LTR & TC to standard gauge, which prompted the 13's return to the SP in April 1927 and its scrapping a few months later.

In all of its nearly 50 years of service, this little Consolidation never discarded its traditionally unlucky number.