Pacific Lumber Company 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class 35 (Locobase 15231)

Data from DeGolyer, Vol 71, pp.323+. (Thanks to Stephen Low for his 13 October 2017 email establishing PALCO's corporate and operating iindependence.) Works number was 57538 in November 1923.

An oil-burning Mikado similar to several others that like the others had at times to use the common-carrier tracks of the Northwestern Pacific as well as its own lines. So it was sized and equipped to fit in with the medium-sized freight engines it would encounter. The piston valves had a relatively large diameter of 12" (305 mm).

Stephen Low fleshed out Pacific Lumber's identity when he commented: "PALCO was a great family owned company that had a sustainable logging system until it was subject to a hostile corporate takeover that liquidated its assets into bankruptcy by 2006."

Still, PALCO's own tracks were more like the logging roads to which Baldwin supplied hundreds of locomotives. Rail weight was a light 60 lb/yard (30 kg/meter) and curves could bend as much as 25 degrees. It was guaranteed to haul 14 cars of 15 short tons (13.6 metric tons) each up a straight grade of not over 4 1/2% and the resistance of the compensated grade with curves would not be any greater than a straight grade.

The 35 operated out of PALCO headquarters at Scotia, Calif until it was sold to February 1966 to Edward and Julius Nervo. They sold the 35 to Gunner Henrioulle in January 1968. Soon the 35 wound up on the Wasatch Mountain Railroad, the line of the Heber Creeper.