Starting in 1943, the St. Louis-San Francisco commenced rebuilding of some of their 1306 class 2-8-0's into 2-8-2's at their Springfield, Missouri shops. Here is a photo of #1355 as she appeared in 2000 at her display site in Pensacola, Florida:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/slsf/slsf-s1355ags.jpg

The Frisco rebuilt the old 1912 Consolidation's so that Mikado's could be used between Amory, Mississippi and Pensocola, where bridges had limited the size of engines on the line to 2-8-0's. Of the 7 "new" Mikes, 3 have been preserved including 1355, the next-to-last one put into service in October of 1945. When sister engine 1356 rolled out of Springfield the following year, steam rebuilding had been completed on the Frisco.

Les

Les,
Just a kinda related side note....Frisco 2-8-2 #4018, which is sitting at the fairgrounds in Birmingham, is not a conversion, but interestingly it was rebuilt by Frisco in 1952 just before being donated to the city. Sorry I don't have a pic.

It's in a somewhat precarious state because the city is going to demo the fairgrounds and redevelop the area. I think they plan to move it to the new railroad reservation park they are developing downtown or Sloss Furnace. Hope the same bums that destroyed the HOD equipment don't get near it there.

Bill

Bill -

Thanks for the info. The 4018 made the Frisco's last regularly scheduled steam run on a local freight out of Birmingham on 2/29/52. Nice that the railroad thought to preserve the engine that made its last steam run. I don't think to many roads did that!

I hope that the engine eventually gets relocated to a good home, wherever that might be. She is a genuine USRA light Mike. Keep us posted on developments if you will.

Les

Les,
Are my eyes fooling me or is 1355 jacketed all the way up to the front of her smokebox? Did the Frisco do this or was it done in an restoration effort?
Don C.

Don,

The jacketing extends all the way up to the coffin feedwater heater that straddles the smokebox. The rebuilt engines came out of the shop this way, as far as I know.

Tim,
Thanks for the heads-up. I thought the jacketing ended rather abruptly and now I can see that is the bottom of the Coffin.
Don C.

Last time I saw 1355 3-4 years ago she looked pretty good and still had everything intact and the lettering and paint authentic.
Looks like somebody in the photo got creative with the white or aluminum paint on the running board and steps and a few other places. The "FRISCO" on the cab sides isn't right either. Is this an old photo?
I think the Seabees painted her a few years ago and did an excellent job.
I'm sure the Frisco removed all of the asbestos lagging before donating her like they did all the other engines they donated, except for the 4501.

Here is a photo of one of the other preserved 1350 class 2-8-2's:

http://bnsfsd70.rrpicturearchives.net/s ... ?id=770850

Long displayed in Memphis, Tennessee and now in Colliersville.

Les

What of #1352, and one Mr. Ted Lemen's apparently abortive attempt to restore it, operationally?

I think what I find interesting about these Mikes is they came from the Springfield shops and where stretched from a consolidation to a Mike.

Frisco must have know they needed the power to fill in for the WAR and considering most of them have boosters and a new cast trailing truck under them to get a train started. The 1350 - 1356 to me is where the railroad engineers knew they need more power but didn't have the money to make it happen or didn't have time for a locomotive builder to build a new one for them.

1351, 1352 and 1355 are the last of these locomotives. I find it interesting out of the 6 that were built 3 survived the torch. Right now as it sits the 1350-1356 have around 53,000lbs of tractive effort and with the booter on would give them around another 10K to 12K. Not bad for starting a train of having 63K to 65K of starting effort on a 63" wheel base. It would be good to see one of these locomotive running on a shortline some where and maybe one of the days one of these would get its day in the sun.

For know just be glad we have keep them preserved and here for possible future generations.