Bingham & Garfield Other Articulated Locomotives in the USA

Class 100 (Locobase 16337)

Data from B&G - UCCO 1943 Locomotive Diagrams supplied in August 2013 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange collection and from the Utah Rails site [] and [], accessed 1 July 2005. (Many thanks to Steve Low for his 4 December 2016 email pointing out a key error in boiler pressure for this engine and for adding several comments that helped Locobase revise this entry's with greater thoroughness and accuracy.)

Locobase 6941 shows the original data and builder information for this class when they were produced in 1911.

This entry reflects a substantial upgrade undertaken later, a modification apparently also based on the D&H locomotives shown in Locobase 8954. New appliances included Alco's Type G power reverse gear, Standard MB stoker, Elesco's Type CA1 feed water heater, and Elesco's Type HA superheater.

Also, the road installed Rosebud rocker grates.The design used a pattern of small holes in a fixed plate and was frequently adopted by railroads burning fine-grain coal like anthracite or lignite whose size was not suited to the more typical finger or Hulson grates in general use. Grate area is shown as 4 sq ft (0.37 sq m) less than the 100 sq ft (9.29 sq m) in the D&H or, for that matter, in an earlier B&G diagram. Could this reflect the differences between the grate designs? Also, by this time, firebox heating surface area included 60 sq ft (5.57 sq m) of arch tubes.

The Bingham Central originally was created in 1907 to ensure that the ore from the Bingham mines would get to the Garfield smelter. In 1908 Utah Copper organized the system as the B & G and began surveying the route immediately. Construction took the next three years. The 100 started her first revenue run with 41 60-ton hopper cars on 14 September 1911.

A chart in the diagram book shows that the locomotives varied in the number of tubes (262, 264, 256, 264, 263, 255, and 265, respectively)

Very few 16-coupled Mallets with no auxiliary axles were built for US operation, but the B&G found them satisfactory.

Kennecott Copper Corporation bought Utah Copper (parent of the Bingham & Garfield) in 1936. In 1947, Kennecott inaugurated the new, all-electric Copperton Low Line that supplanted the steam-powered Utah Copper Division line.

Class 100 (Locobase 6941)

Data from B&G - UCCO Locomotive Diagrams supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange and from the Utah Rails site [] and [], accessed 1 July 2005. (Many thanks to Steve Low for his 4 December 2016 email pointing out a key error in boiler pressure for this engine and for adding several comments that helped Locobase revise this entry's with greater thoroughness and accuracy; and thanks to Chris Hohl for his 6 January 2018 email supplying an image of the original data card for the 100. The data in the specs table give those original data.)

Works numbers were 49978 in June 1911, 50018 in July, 50483 in November, 51710 in August 1912 . Three more followed with only detail differences. Works numbers were 56788-56965 in March 1917 and 59492 in November 1918.

The grates installed in the 100s used when delivered; a note in Don Strack's Utah Rails page on B&G locomotives says that they were "built using plans for Delaware & Hudson 0-8-8-0s [Locobase 8952], including the large fireboxes meant for anthracite coal, although B&G burned bituminous coal." Looking at the D&H design and the AERJ article cited in that entry gives an idea of the ponderous, uncompromising power these engines possessed at the time of delivery.

The Bingham Central originally was created in 1907 to ensure that the ore from the Bingham mines would get to the Garfield smelter. In 1908 Utah Copper organized the system as the B & G and began surveying the route immediately. Construction took the next three years. The 100 started her first revenue run with 41 60-ton hopper cars on 14 September 1911.

Very few 16-coupled Mallets with no auxiliary axles were built for US operation, but the B&G found them satisfactory. Locobase 16337 shows the updates applied to the engines, especially the makeover of the locomotives' grates.