Ringaboy: Retro Railware

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The Clinchfield Railroad was an operating and holding company for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway. The line ran 277 miles from Elkhorn City, KY through Erwin, TN and on to Spartanburg, SC. It connected with the C&O at Elkhorn City and with the Southern and ACL in Spartanburg.

The Clinchfield was the last Class I railroad built in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. Its main line provided access to numerous scenic wonders of the Appalachian region and is probably best-known for the state-of-the-art railroad engineering techniques applied in its construction, as exemplified by the Clinchfield Loops climbing the Blue Ridge Mountains north of Marion, North Carolina. The Clinchfield Railroad began operating the line December 1, 1924, and for many years it was leased jointly by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

The Clinchfield Railroad bought nine 2-8-2 "Mikado" type locomotives from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1919 and another ten in 1923. The first group was designated as Class K-1 and assigned road numbers 400-408, the second group known as Class K-4 were given road numbers 410-419. These locomotives had 63" diameter drivers, 27" x 30" cylinders, a 190 psi boiler pressure, and exerted 56,064 pounds of tractive effort. The first eight weighed 309,160 pounds and the last ten weighed 319,700 pounds.

There were two more "Mikados on the Clinchfield, number 499, designated as Class K-2, which was purchased from the Cambria & Indiana Railroad, and number 498, designated as Class K-3, which was purchased from the Spanish-American Iron Company. These two second-hand locomotives arrived in 1917.

The Clinchfield sold all nine of its Class K-1 "Mikados" in February of 1943. Five, numbers 400, 401, 404, 405 and 408 were sold to the Charleston & Western Carolina Railroad and the other four went to the Georgia Railroad.

There are no surviving Clinchfield 2-8-2 "Mikado" type locomotives.

Class K-1 (Locobase 1316)

Data from CLINCH 1943ca Locomotive Diagrams and GA (Georgia Railroad) 1954 supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. See also DeGolyer, Vol 56, pp. 444+. Works numbers were 51260, 51273-51274, 51440-51442 in February 1919; 51524-51525, 51565 in March.

One of two identical Mikado classes that were not built under the United States Railroad Administration. For reasons most likely due to the US entry into World War One and Baldwin's broad activity in war production, this class wasn't produced until two years after it was ordered on 12 March 1917.

The railroad retained a relatively conservative firebox layout in which 38 sq ft of arch tubes supplemented the basic firebox heating surface. Piston valves measured 15" (381 mm) in diameter.

These were sold the Charleston & Western Carolina (5 as 850-854) and Georgia Railroad (4 as their Class F, road numbers 331-334) in 1943.

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Class K-3 (Locobase 14214)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Volume 54, p. 213. Works number was 45356 in March 1917.

According to a 25 May 2012 email to Wes Barris's http://www.steamlocomotive.com from Bill Root and confirmed by the Baldwin specification, this engine was ordered by Cuban-based Spanish-American Iron Company in October 1916 as part of a three-locomotive batch. When it was ready for delivery, however, the SAIC did not take delivery and the engine was sold in April 1917 to the Clinchfield. (The other two were sold to the Savannah & Atlanta; see Locobase 9157).

The Baldwin specs was to haul 58 ore cars that each weighed 50,000 lb (22,680 kg) empty and 100,000 lb (45,360 kg) gross or a total of 1,450 revenue tons. Apparently the lack of superheater didn't faze the Clinchfield, which operated the 498 into the 1940s.

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Class K-4 (Locobase 1317)

Data from CLINCH 1943ca Locomotive Diagrams book supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange.

Photo in Drury (1993) shows drum-like sand and steam domes, the headlight positioned under the smokebox, and airpumps fastened to the front of the smokebox. These big engines used 15" (381 mm) piston valves to supply steam to their relatively large cylinders.

Operated until 1952-1955.