Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class 100 (Locobase 15205)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 71, pp. 26+. Works number was 54065 in November 1920.

Although ultimately lettered for the TAG Route, this locomotive first took shape in response to an order from a Cuban company, the Central Guira sugar mill. For some reason, probably financial on the part of the CG, the locomotive went into the stockyard and waited for another buyer. One was found in May 1922 in the Chattanooga Traction Company, which bought this middle-sized Consolidation for the TA&G.

After all of that, the 100 served the TA&G for only nine years before being sold to locomotive rebuilder/reseller Georgia Car & Locomotive. GC&L found a buyer in South Carolina in the form of the Greenville & Northern, which numbered it 15 and operated it until until it was scrapped in 1952.

Class 101 (Locobase 14347)

Data from DeGolyer, Vol 71, pp.171+. See also the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program's listing of the 101 at []. Works number was 55644 in September 1922.

Baldwin's specs show that the 101 was destined to climb 2% grades and go around 20 degree curves.

After nine years on the TAG, locomotive rebuilder/reseller Georgia Car & Locomotive bought the 101 in 1931. GC&L sold the 101 to the Fordyce & Princeton of Fordyce, Ark, where it operated for another 17 years before being retired in 1948.

From April 1960, the 101 went on display at the Children's Museum in Little Rock. It was later sold privately to a location in Alexander, Ark, until the owner donated it to Fordyce in 2007.

Class 201 (Locobase 14348)

Data from DeGolyer, Vol 71, pp.171+. Works number was 57707 in March 1924.

This superheated Consolidation's firebox heating surface area included 46 sq ft (4.3 sq m) in two Nicholson thermic syphons .Cylinders were served their steam through 10" (254 mm) diameter piston valves. Locobase believes that using thermic syphons in so small a boiler and firebox at this early date is quite unusual. He also wonders if the TAG retained the syphon installation or removed it before selling the engine to the Chattahoochee Valley of West Point, Ga in 1936.

The CV later renumbered the engine as 21 and, after its service had ended, donated it in July 1961 to the National Railroad Historical Society. The NRHS put the engine on display at Duluth, Georgia's Gwinnett Railway Museum (now the Southeastern Railway Museum).