Wrightsville & Tennille 4-4-0 "American" Locomotives in the USA

Class 9 (Locobase 7937)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 26, p. 148; and CofGa 12 - 1925 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also "Linstrom's Improved Eccentric", Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Volume IX [9], No 10 (October 1896),p 824. Works number was 23233 in November 1903. See Rail Georgia's excellent "biography" of the W&T.

This Georgia railroad often bought locomotives from railroads such as the Central of Georgia when those bigger operations no longer needed such relatively dinky engines. In this case, however, Baldwin delivered an Eight-wheeler directly to the W&T, which at the time was a 75-mile (121 km) line that had Tennille at one end and dipped down and to the West well past Wrightsville and through Dublin to Hawkinsville at the other. The "Wiggle and Twist" earned its nickname for its curvy alignment.

Baldwin's 1903 specification includes the note that the locomotive was to be fitted with Linstrom eccentrics, royalty to be paid by the company. Eccentrics were a critical element in the drivetrain of inside valve locomotives. Linstrom was the Master Mechanic of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad. His innovation was to fasten the eccentric to the axle using a U-shaped bolt with threaded ends to snug the larger portion of a two-piece disk to the axle by tightening the ends with nuts. . A smaller, "complementary" piece fit over the open section of strap and completed the disk through dowels held in place by nuts. Thus the bearing surface was always at right angles to the surface of the axle and avoided side stresses.

The W&T operated the #9 for 20 years, then sold it to the C of Ga. The 1925 diagrams shows some minor differences in heating surface areas and adhesion weight from the original spec. Its owner ran it for another 11 years before scrapping it in November 1934.