San Pete Valley 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class 50/Class 80/C-16 (Locobase 16461)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 20, p. 145. For the San Pete Valley, see on the Utah Rails website at []; and "San Pete County" on the Ilovehistory.utah.gov website at [], last accessed 20 January 2020. (Many thanks to Brian Burr, whose 31 December 2019 email brought this pair of locomotives to Locobase's attention and who supplied the orginal Baldwin spec.) Works numbers were 14875-14876 in June 1896.

This pair of small Consolidations for a Utah railway was delivered five months after a single locomotive of identical design went to the Alexander & Rich Mountain Railroad in West Virginia. Connecting the two were tight margins and challenging grades. The SPV spec notes grades of "1 1/2%, 3.8%, and 4 1/2%."

The SPV was originally opened in May 1882 as 28 miles of 3'-ft (914 mm) gauge line just south of Salt Lake City. It left the main line at Nephi, Utah heading east, but soon curved south to reach the coal mines at Wales. (Sanpete County's name was a corruption of San Pitch, the name of the local Ute tribe.)

When the company decided to convert to standard gauge, it ordered the 50 and 52, taking delivery on 1 July 1896.

Both were taken into the Denver & Rio Grande in August 1908. 52 was renumbered 681 on 19 January, 50 on 9 September as 680. Both were discarded in 1924.