Saginaw Timber 2-8-2 "Mikado" Locomotives in the USA

Class 2 (Locobase 12765)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 43, p. 234. See also Steve Sweeney, Locked and loaded: Polson Logging No. 2 heads west this week", Trains News Wire, 4 October 2017, last accessed 4 February 2018 at [] . Works number was 38967 in December 1912.

Placed on the line immediately after Polson Logging engine 101 described in Locobase 12764, this Mikado had a smaller tender, but was otherwise identical. It went to nearby Kerriston, Wash. Its flangeless drivers (on 2nd and 3rd axles) contributed to its being able to negotiate 30-deg curves.

2's subsequent career had several more stops than the 101. It was sold to the NorthWest Lumber Company then in 1929 to Polson. Like the 101, the 2 was kept in service when Rayonier Corporation took over Polson in 1948. In 1963, the 2 moved 2/3s of the way across the country to operate in tourist service on the Grand Travers Northern (Michigan), then on the 4 1/2 -mile Cadillac & Lake City. Then sold to Kettle Moraine, the 2, owned by Roland "Skip" Lichter, eventually went to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, WI, where it ran as Saginaw Timber #2 until 2000.

Still owned by Lichter, but leased by the MRM, the 2 began a long restoration to full operating status. Steam tests in 2015-2016 established that the 2 was ready, but a dispute between Lichter and MRM over the cost of the overhaul and an MRM decision not to operate the locomotive led to an arbitrator's award in February 2017 of $200,000 to Lichter.

Lichter found a new home for the 2 on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi, Oregon. Traveling on a semi-trailer over 2,000 miles, the 2 arrived in October 2017. (Supporters of the OCSR were then contesting the proposed Port of Tilamook Bay lease agreement with the Salmonberry Trail Intergovernmental Agency (STIA), fearing that it would convert some or all of the line to trails.)

After