Washington, Idaho & Montana 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" Locomotives in the USA

Class 1 (Locobase 16529)

Data from American Locomotive Company Negative No. S-440 supplied by Jonathan VanAken. See also Judith Neilsen, "A Brief History of the Washington, Idaho & Montana Railway Company" (1982), Manuscript Group 139, Washington, Idaho & Montana Railway Company, Records, 1903-1962. 65.5 l.f, archived at [], last accessed 7 February 2021; and Washington, Montana, and Idaho History Preservation Group, Inc. website at [], last accessed 7 February 2021. (Many thanks to Jonathan Van Aken for his 3 February 2021 email supplying the builder's negative as well as an extensive account of the WM&I and the #1's career.) Works numbers were 40684-40685 in June 1906.

Tall timber in Idaho's Potlatch Basin led the Wisconsin Log and Lumber Company and Weyerhaeuser to combine efforts as the Potlatch Lumber Company. The original choice for the all-important mill site was Moscow, but lack of water and inflated asking prices led to a relocation 18 miles distant and establishment of Potlatch.

Nielsen's account carefully detailed all the corporate and railroad negotiations over the next several years, but essentially it always seemed cheaper and quicker for PLC simply to build the 46 mile (74 km) rail line itself. Choosing the three-state name, company president F H Thatcher wrote, avoided a too-local appearance or a misapprehension that the line would be an industrial road. Once construction began in 1905, it moved briskly, laying 20 miles (32 km) of track to Harvard, Idaho.

(Nielsen commented that some believed stations named Wellesley, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Vassar, Cornell, and Purdue were conceived by young college men. She couldn't confirm, but other than the previously established Princeton, "the story could well be true.")

By the end of 1906, the line had reached Bovil and passenger service hauled by the two Ten-wheelers delivered that year had begun. The two engines cost between $25615-$25,707 together as ALCO offered the road a $400 price reduction if it ordered two or more locomotives.

But the railroad would never extend past Purdue into Montana in large part because the Milwaukee Road and the WM&I agreed to joint use of their tracks with a division of rates. And a major forest fire in 1910 put paid to the plan.

But the WM&I remained independent for decades and Jonathan VanAken notes the 1 and 2's role in its continuing operation. The Ten-wheeler design was "... a capable engine for the short road, and while the Consolidations would typically handle the heavier log trains the Ten-Wheelers proved their worth on early passenger services and general freight haulage."

Van Aken reports that 1 and 2 received "Nisqually-Russel oil burners and around the same time equipped with Bellhouse flange lubricators and Franklin driving box lubricators." in 1912. (Nisqually-Russel Car & Locomotive Works, based in Tacoma, Wash, advertised its oil burning equipment in the October 1913 Timberman.) The WM&I shops installed a Type A superheater and "Economy" valves (piston valves in a case that fit the original slide-valve mounting points on the cylinder.) in the 1 in 1925 and provided the same kit for the 2 later on. (Van Aken supplied a photograph of the preserved #1 that shows the valve rod bent to accommodate the superheater.)

"Between 1950 and 1959", VanAken wrote,"the remaining four locomotives were taken out of service. #2 was scrapped 'in the early 1950s', and #20 & #21 were taken out of service between 1957 and 1959." 1 wound up on display in the city of Potlatch. Eventually, the 1 found cover in the Scenic Six Historical Park, where it remained well into the 21st century.