Hecla & Torch Lake 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class Penokee (Locobase 10781)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works, Record of Recent Construction (1903), No. 35, p. 190-191; and DeGolyer, Volume 24, p. 193. See also "Calumet & Hecla Mining Company - Indian Campfire Vignette" at [], last accessed 24 November 2017; and David J Krause, in The Making of a Mining District: Keweenaw Native Copper 1550-1870, (Detroit, MI: Wayne University Press, 1992), p. 240. Works number was 20163 in February 1902.

This copper-mining company was one of the largest to be assembled in Michigan's copper country located in the Upper Peninsula. Scripophily's overview of the company noted that between 1867 and 1884, the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company produced half of the total copper output in the United States. David Krause asserted in his book that the C&HM often was seen as synonymous with the Keweenaw peninsula. It was "...run efficiently, mined the richest lode, paid the best wages, and housed its employees adequately and inexpensively."

This Belpaire-boilered Mikado tank was delivered as a 4' 1"-gauge engine, but was converted to standard gauge in 1907. Baldwin's specification page estimated adhesion weight would come in at 111,000 lb (50,349 kg) and engine weight would total 144,000 lb (65,317 kg). That seems to have been an exceptionally bad guess given the figures in Baldwin's own Record of Recent Construction prepared a year later.

In a nod to the UP's climate, the cab was to be made "perfectly tight for extreme cold weather."

Sometime later the Penokee was later renumbered 10 and operated by the Hecla & Torch Lake, which was owned by the C&HMC. It was scrapped in 1944.

Class Roberval (Locobase 13209)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 31, p. 83. Works numbers were 32200 and 32223 in November 1907.

See Locobase 10781 for a description of the H&TL's origins.

These two tanks added to the H&TL's Mikado holding; the first is described in Locobase 10781. The second of the pair produced in Novamber 1907 was named Champlain. Compared to the earlier Penokee, this design had a few more tubes that were each a foot (305 mm) longer. Its cylinders had an inch (25.4 mm) greater diameter and two-inch (50.8 mm) longer stroke.

Baldwin's specs lay out the axle equalizations in a typical arrangement. The outer driving axles (1st and 4th) were each equalized with the adjacent trucks with the middle two axles (2nd and 3rd) equalized with each other.

Roberval was scrapped in 1944, the Champlain in 1955.