Gulf & Interstate 4-4-0 "American" Locomotives in the USA

Class 11 (Locobase 12710)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 27, p. 25. See also "The Populist Railroad", Santa Fe Modeler (January/February 1983) as revised, archived on the web at []. Works number was 24140 in April 1904.

According to author Burton, the G & I's original ambition was to challenge the western rail monopoly. Convict labor would build the line from Galveston Bay to Topeka, Kansas, where the road would fork toward Duluth and Winnipeg, throwing off branches to Colorado and Wyoming. Spurred by populists, the line never got farther than Beaumont.

A few years after the line's opening, one of the most powerful and certainly one of the deadliest hurricanes slammed into Galveston on 8 September 1900, engulfing the island on which the city stands and killing at least 8,000 people. The material damage to the G & I was on a par with the death toll. According to the 28 September 1900 Railway Age (Volume 30, p. 258), storm waters wrecked much of the railroad: "Of the 70 miles of this Texas road from Port Bolivar to Beaumont, 27 miles of track, from the port to High Island, were washed away and in many places the right of way now lies in the gulf. The wharves and piers are completely gone. The damage is estimated at $100,000, and it is thought that at least six months will be required for restoring the line, if it is decided to rebuild."

Although the G & I went into receivership two weeks after the storm, money from several sources including $20,000 from Galveston citizens allowed the line to rebuild. The line reopened in 1903.

This Eight-wheeler was one of the new engines purchased after the line reopened. In 1914, the 11 was sold tot he Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe

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