Washburn, Bayfield & Iron River 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" Locomotives in the USA

Class 3 (Locobase 16471)

Data from James Dredge, A Record of the Transportation Exhibits at the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1894), p. 171-172, and Plate XLI). See also DeGolyer, Volume 18, p. 195. See also "Washburn Bayfield & Iron River Railway" on the BattleAx Camp website at [], last accessed 2 February 2020. (Thanks to Chris Hohl for his 13 January 2020 email and well-drafted spreadsheet, the latter noting the absence of this locomotive from Locobase and providing detailed data.) Works numbers was 2252 in February 1893.

Part of the Cooke exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair, this relatively large Ten-wheeler apparently returned to the Paterson, NJ builder's yard after the exhiibition closed. Meanwhile, boosters in the Lake Superior region of Wisconsin succeeded in winning approval to build a railroad from Washburn to Iron River. Beginning at both ends in Washburn and Iron River on 3 December 1897, the contractors completed the four main sections on 1 May 1898. It was around that time that the WB&IR leased the 3 from Cooke.

Financially hamstrung from the start, the "Battle Ax" went into receivership in December 1898. "Because the railroad company was frequently unable to pay the workers that were building the track," reports the Battle Axe site, company officials "offered them chewing tobacco to keep them happy and the brand of Battle Ax was their favorite. They were referred to as the Battle Ax gang and the name stuck, the railroad generally being called the 'Battle Ax' from the beginning ..."

One casualty of the collapse was the 3, but it was sold in April 1901 to the Tacoma Easter. When the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul & Pacific bought the TE in 1918, it placed the 3 in its own class G6-h and renumbered it 2333. By then it rolled on thicker tires that increased diameter to 63"(1,600 mm) and used a 180-psi (12.4 bar) boiler. The combination increased starting tractive effort to 31,326 lb (14,209 kg or 139.34 kN).

In 1902, just as the main sections were being torn up, a temporary injunction from the Wisconsin Supreme Court soon led to Northern Pacific's purchase of the WB&IR.