Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range
The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway was an iron ore hauling railroad in Minnesota. Iron ore is a heavy commodity and the DM&IR operated long trains of ore cars, requiring as much power as the railroad could get their hands on. The design of these locomotives was based upon a series of 10 powerful 2-8-8-2s that Baldwin had built previously for the Western Pacific Railroad. The need for a larger, coal burning firebox and a longer, all-weather cab led to the use of a four-wheel trailing truck, giving them the "Yellowstone" wheel arrangement. They were the most powerful Yellowstones built, producing 140,000 lbf (620 kN) of tractive effort, and had the most weight on drivers so that they were not prone to slipping as were other Yellowstones.
Eight locomotives (class M-3) were built by Baldwin in 1941. The Yellowstones met or exceeded the DM&IR specifications so ten more were ordered (class M-4). The second batch was completed late in 1943 after the Missabe's seasonal downturn in ore traffic, so some of the new M-4s were leased to and delivered directly to the Denver & Rio Grande Western.
The next winter, the D&RGW again leased the DM&IR's Yellowstones as helpers over Tennessee Pass, Colorado and for other mainline freight duties. The Rio Grande returned the Yellowstones after air-brake failure caused Number 224 to wreck on the Fireclay Loop. This was despite the Rio Grande's earlier assessment that these Yellowstones were the finest engines to ever operate on the railroad.
DM&IR's locomotives were the only Yellowstones equipped with a high-capacity pedestal or centipede tender, and had roller bearings on all axles. Some of the locomotives were fitted with the cylindrical Elesco feedwater heater before the smoke stack, while others used a Worthington unit with its rectangular box in the same location.
Only one Yellowstone was retired before dieselization took place on the Missabe; Number 237 was sold for scrap after it was involved in a wreck. The rest of the 2-8-8-4s were retired between 1958 and 1963 as diesel locomotives completely took over on the Missabe Road.
Three of the eighteen built still survive and are on display Number 227 at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, Minnesota, Number 225 in Proctor, Minnesota, and Number 229 in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
Read more about this topic: 2-8-8-4
Famous quotes containing the words iron and/or range:
“Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.”
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)
“Narrowed-down by her early editors and anthologists, reduced to quaintness or spinsterish oddity by many of her commentators, sentimentalized, fallen-in-love with like some gnomic Garbo, still unread in the breadth and depth of her full range of work, she was, and is, a wonder to me when I try to imagine myself into that mind.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)