Great Northern 2-10-2 "Santa Fe" Locomotives in the USA

Class Q-1 (Locobase 8813)

Data from GN 1 - 1929 and 4 - 1946 Locomotive Diagrams books supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. Roster information from Ben Ringnalda's Great Northern Empire website at [], last accessed 20 October 2007. See also DeGolyer Volume 67, pp. 331+. (Thanks to Chris Hohl for his 10 December 2016 email noting that all of the class were delivered as oil burners and describing the differences in tender weights and capacities.) Works numbers were 57410, 57442, 57517-57532 in November 1923; 57559-57568, 57592-57593 in December.

Big engines in every respect, these Santa Fes had the Belpaire firebox beloved by the Great Northern, 15" (381 mm) piston valves, and lots of weight on the drivers. Their tube & flues had large diameters and the 60 superheater flues were among the most in any boiler. A smallish grate area meant much less to an oil-fired class and they had few rivals in the adhesion weight they could throw into hauling a train. They were rated at 3,000 tons of trailing load (75 cars) over the mountainous Montana profile beetween Whitefish and Cutbank.

Chris Hohl points out that all were delivered as oil burners trailing Vanderbilt tenders weighing 265,000 lb (120,202 kg) when carrying 15,000 US gallons(56,775 litres) of water and 5,000 gallons (18,925 litres) of oil. Hohl added that several locomotives converted to coal burning and the 1929 diagrams bear him out. In that listing, fifteen engines--2000-2001, 2004-2008, 2010-2016, and 2019--pulled tenders that weighed 123,950 lb (56,223 kg) empty and, when filled with 25 tons of coal (22.7 metric tons), 298,950 lb (135,602 kg) loaded.

Delivered with 370 sq ft (34.37 sq m) of heating surface and 5,499 sq ft (510.87 sq m) total, the class later added 39 sq ft (3.63 sq m) of arch tubes and a trailing-truck booster developing 12,200 lb.

All remained in service until the 1950s with the last 3 being withdrawn in December 1957.

Class Q-2 (Locobase 8814)

Data from GN 4 - 1946 Locomotive Diagrams book supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange. (Thanks to Chris Hohl for his 17 March 2019 email noting the original fuel in the upgrade's tender.)

Originally delivered to the GN as 4-8-2s in 1914, the entire class was converted to Santa Fes in 1929. In the process, they kept their long boilers with Belpaire firebox stretched by a combustion chamber. Everything else - from the internal arrangement of tubes and flues to the number and diameter of drivrs - changed as did their service from heavy passenger to drag freight. Their big cylinders were supplied steam through 16" (406 mm) piston valves.

Firebox heating surface area included 90 sq ft (8.36 sq m) from the combustion chamber. Late diagrams refer to circulators adding 62.3 sq ft to the firebox, but gives no details as to how many locomotives were fitted with them.

When they came out of the shops, the class burned coal conveyed through a Duplex stoker and trailed a tender carrying 24 tons (21.8 metric tons). It weighed 125,800 lb (57,062 kg) light and 315,600 lb (143,154 kg) loaded. By the late 1940s, nine were oil burners as shown in the specifications.

They all lasted into the 1950s, the last five being retired in April 1958.