Additional steam locomotive history
Quite a bit has been published about how the Alaska Railroad got their 550 class Consolidations, but included in the lore are a number of errors that have been copied from one publication to another. Original sources, primarily Alaska Railroad archival materials that were reviewed in the Anchorage National Archives office before it was closed, gave another story.
At the beginning of WWII, the ARR had a large increase in traffic, but many old locomotives, including a number of 2-6-0s built in 1906 for construction of the Panama Canal and purchased as surplus when the ARR began operation. 4-8-2 #802 was on order from Baldwin, but a shortage of boiler steel was causing a several-month delay in its delivery. Although ARR management wanted more 4-8-2s, the quoted delivery for additional examples was a year from placing an order. When they found that USATC Consolidations could be obtained essentially "off the shelf" under a War Department contract, they reluctantly arranged to obtain eight of the 2-8-0s.
Four, Alaska Railroad 551 through 554, were in the first group acquired from Baldwin. many reports incorrectly claim that all of the 550 class locomotive were obtained as War surplus. However, this first group was purchased new from Baldwin through the government contract and modified at the factory from the standard USATC design for Europe by the addition of automatic couplers, pilot, electric lights, generator and bell. Below is an image from the as-built specifications from Baldwin Locomotive Works dated July 20, 1943, for class 2-8-0 19S for the locomotives built in Alaska. USATC 1702 was apparently Baldwin's first USATC Consolidation. It was the subject of several photos, including this builder's photo, but it doesn't appear that builder's photos were made of the hundreds of other examples built by Baldwin.
The other image comes from a "List of Materials and Supplies Purchased from United States Army for the Period July 18, 1942 to January 12, 1946." It shows the purchase price for ARR 551 through 554, along with the additional charge for Alaskan modifications.
Page created 8/16/16 and last updated 8/16/16