Winston-Salem Southbound 4-8-0 "Mastodon" Locomotives in the USA

Class M (Locobase 13675)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 35, p. 231. See also the North Carolina Rails account at

[], last accessed 6 January 2012. Works numbers were 35858-35861 in January 1911.

The WSSB was jointly owned by the Norfolk & Western and the Atlantic Coast Line and linked the N & W's line at Winston-Salem, NC with that of the ACL, 90.2 miles (145.2 km) distant at Wadesboro. The line was originally conceived for very local operations, but its first practical sponsor was the Southern Railway. Although chartered in 1905, it wasn't until the brothers HE and Francis Fries persuaded the N & W to buy the Southern's share and bring the ACL on board in a 50/50 partnership in 1909 that construction actually began.

The first passenger train left Winston-Salem for Whitney on 17 December 1910. These "Mollies", exact duplicates of the Norfolk & Western Twelve-wheelers shown in Locobase 2501. Thus they probably also suffered from the same mis-alignment in the valve gear described by Thomas Dressler in that entry.

The WSSB dieselized in 1957.