Silver Falls Timber Company 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class 101 (Locobase 13947)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 43, p.245. Works number was 39394 in March 1913.

The SFTC of Silverton, Oregon operated this logging Mikado for more than 1/4 century during a time when, according to the Silverton, Ore website's history ([]), the company boasted the largest sawmill of its kind in the world.

According to the specs that would accompany the latter-built (and superheated) 102 (locobase 14324), SFTC made several changes to the 101 that they wanted Baldwin to bear in mind in 1917. First, there was the surgery to the back end: "Company cut out the door sheet of the firebox from even with the deck to the crown sheet with an electric welder (underlined) and set in a sheet this size to overcome approximately 50 cracks which developed around the rivet holes." Apparently very concerned about the strength of the oil-burning firebox and possibly considering it due to localized hot spots: "Company also put 4 stays from the top seam of backhead of the boiler to the top of the crown sheets as supports, lowered the firepan from about 10" above the mud ring to the lowest possible point, and in addition bricked up the entire back sheet."

Locobase wonders if any other oil-burning Baldwin logging engines showed similar defects.

After the SFTC closed in 1938, 101 went to the McCloud Railroad in 1939 as their #16 (2nd). The McCloud continued to run the 16 until 1955.

Class 102 (Locobase 14324)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 53, pp. 22+. Works number was 45753 in June 1917.

102 was an oil-burning logging Mikado like her sister 101 (Locobase 13947), but the newer engine arrived with a superheated boiler and 12' piston valves to feed the cylinders. According to the specs, the engine operated on 60 lb/yard (30 kg/metre) rail and encountered maximum grades of 6%.

See the earlier engine for comments about significant work the SFTC felt compelled to wreak on the backhead of the 101's firebox after cracks radiated from 50 rivet holes while the engine was in service.

The 102 would later work for White River Lumber Company as their #5. When they sold it to Schafer Brothers Lumber Company, the latter renumbered it 23. The 23 was scrapped in 1955.