Tampa Northern / Timpson Northwestern 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" Locomotives in the USA

Class 100/690 (Locobase 4997)

Data from 1929 SAL locomotive diagrams published on [] . See also DeGolyer, Volume 30, p. 94-95; and "Tampa Northern Ten-Wheeler", Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Volume 21, No. 4 (April 1908), p. 156. Works numbers were 31965-31966, 32007 in October 1907.

Middleweight Ten-wheelers delivered as wood-burners to this short Florida West Coast railroad. The TN was incorporated in 1906 to link Tampa with Atlanta, Ga, some 500 miles away. By 1 January 1908, the road had stretched north from Tampa all the way to Brooksville, 46.4 miles (75 km). Branches off the main line reached west to Hudson and Tooke Lake on the Gulf coast. Its chief value to the Seaboard Air Line, which coveted the TN, was the waterfront and terminal properties in the namesake city.

The 4-6-0s sported the cabbage spark-arresting stack often fitted to wood burners. TN Master Mechanic W J McGee singled out cab design for special mention. The engineer could "operate the engine and reach the various appliances under his control without leaving his seat or taking his eye off the rail."

They taken into the Seaboard Air Line when the TN was absorbed in 1912. They lasted only until 1930, most likely because they were too small for more modern passenger equipment.

Class 4 (Locobase 12769)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 21, p. 216. See also Nancy Beck Young, "TIMPSON AND HENDERSON RAILWAY," Handbook of Texas Online ([]), accessed June 24, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.Works number was 25504 in April 1905.

The T & N ran over a 8-mile line built by the Ragley Lumber Company from Timpson, Texas northwest to Ragley in Panola County. It was described in a 1904 Texas almanac as a "sawmill road", but it gained common carrier status in 1903. Little more than a year later, the line bought this single small Ten-wheeler.

In 1909, with 8 miles built, the T & N was renamed the Timpson & Henderson to reflected its greater ambition. The T & H bought another line built by Ragley that ran from Ragley to Pine Hill and extended it to Henderson, creating a 34-mile line.

The T & H lost its common-carrier status in 1923 and was abandoned, at which point the 4 was sold to Grogan Cochran Lumber.