Here is one I would like to know…
Which major US railroad was the last to utilize steam locos for service (other than a tourist, narrow gauge or shortline), and what year would this have been? I’m looking to find out also what this loco would have been. Anything beyond the 1950’s?
Just trying to find out what the last holdout of steam would have been, I think it would be cool to know the last steam engine to see service.
Thanks ----Rob
As far as major power is concerned look to the N&W. It was March 1960 when the steam was finally gone.
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Steam-Railroad-America/dp/0810982013
As opposed to its neighbor the Southern who was the first major railroad to be 100% diesel.
The last steam locomotive of a major railroad is still in service as the UP 844 was never technically taken off the roster. It is still in service and even pulls revenue freight from time to time.
The Texas Mexican railroad may have ben the first railroad to dieselize, but its not a class 1.
The vast majority of steam was dead by the mid 1950’s, 1955-1956. Most railroads by the early 1950’s had pushed steam off to selected runs and selected classes of engines. The N&W and UP were some of the last hold outs.
Dave H.
CB&Q subsidiary Colorado & Southern was running a 2-8-0 on the Leadville branch in Colorado as late as October, 1962, IIRC.
Churchy
…went back to a September 2006 thread, “Years of Steam and Diesel,” and did a quick cut-copy-paste of some dates I quoted from Kalmbach’s “Diesel Victory” from January 2006:
This “smidgen” of dieselization reference may help one plan and write a history, for a free-lanced and/or prototype model railroad layout by looking at a USA geographic region.
Dieselization positions from some Class I railroads…
1905 - the first successful internal-combustion gas-electric railcar runs on Union Pacific in Nebraska.
1905 - the first experimental diesel locomotive delivered to Southern Pacific.
1939 - Texas-Mexican is the first Class I railroad to go all-diesel.
1947 - Pennsylvania commissions diesel orders of $15 million.
1950 - Illinois Central President, Wayne A Johnston, tells the Chicago Journal of Commerce that his coal-hauling road “will not dieselize its freight services for a long time, if ever.”
1953 - first year (since 1828) Class I railroads do not order any steam engines.
1955 - N&W President, R.H. Smith: This does not mean we have changed our view that our modern roller-bearing coal-burning steam locomotives can handle the major part of our traffic economically, nor does it mean that our interest in new and better types of coal-burning locomotives has diminished in any way."
1955 - Chesapeake & Ohio, Milwaukee Road, Santa Fe, and Soo Line => completly dieselized railroads briefly revive steam service out of mothballs.
Norfolk & Western => coal-fired vs. diesel attitude…
1951 - N&W Roanoke Shops commissions (15) S-1a 080 and (6) Y-6b 2-8-8-2.
1952 - N&W rejects (1) EMD F7 A-B-B-A after 18 days of demo testing.
1953 - N&W Roanoke Shops finishes its last steam => S-1a 0-8-0 #244.
1953 - N&W tests & rejects (1) coal-fired 4500hp C-C+C-C steam-turb
Stuart Saunders - the man who oversaw the dieselization of the N&W AND the bankruptcy of PennCentral. What a legacy ! Racehorse Smith must have felt some small self satisfaction in the final result.
But, in truth, N&W could not have stayed with steam in any event. Although they built their own locomotives, the suppliers and manufacturers of many of the necessary auxiliary pieces of equipment were, and had already, dropped by the wayside.
The table above shows one reason why the 45-55’ decade is so popular for modeling.
Enjoy
Paul
Technically speaking, UP’s 4-8-4 #844 has never been taken out of service, except for maintenance and refurbishing. It has remained on the roster for excursions since 1960. For a while, it was renumbered #8444 so as not to conflict with a series assigned to a diesel fleet but was reassigned her original number when that fleet was retired. Challenger #3985 was later reactivated for the same purpose but I believe she was called into emergency helper service on Sherman Hill when a diesel broke down. I’m a little fuzzy on the details of that incident.
As for everyday, Class 1 duty, I believe the early responder who named the N&W is correct. They were the last holdouts for steam, largely because one of their biggest customers was the coal industry and they wanted to cater to them. Steam remained in service on small branch lines into the 1960s. Today, the Ohio Central maintains a large fleet of refurbished steam, some seeing active duty. Most are CP cast offs.
See OC steam:
It certainly is with me. That table shows 1950-55 was the time frame when the scales tipped toward the diesels.
Although this is a Canadian road, The CPR kept steam running until November 6, 1960, BUT I read from a book that they still had one steam locomotive operating in non-revenue service into 1962. I actually makes sense because the last REVENUE train hauled by steam ran it’s last miles on November 6, 1960. That doesn’t mean they got rid of steam entirely, right?
I wonder what some of the reasons people gave for NOT going with diesels? Like “those small wheels on diesels will NEVER pull like the big wheels on a good big steam hauler”, by gum…
The major coal-hauling railroads, such as the Pennsy and N&W, in part kept steam for so long because they could get the coal cheap and also to be loyal to its traffic base (coal!).
The real reason was tax laws, until the goverment allowed the railroads to write off the diesels over 15 years they were not going to invest in something they felt would not last 40 years that they had to depreciate the steam engine which the railroads knew would last. Which is why the railroads would hold the minority builder engines for 15 years before retiring them.
Rick
Not true, evn thou as a Southern fan I wish it were. The first “major” Class 1 RR to dieselize was the GM&O in 1947. Southern wasn’t dieselized until 1953.
On March 27, 1960 the Grand Trunk Western operated a scheduled commuter train either into or out of - maybe both - Detroit behind a Class S-3 2-8-2 Mikado. This may not be the last Class 1 steam operation in North America but I have never been able to find a scheduled passenger operation running after this date.
On April 25,1960 the last scheduled passenger train on the CNR left Winnipeg,Manitoba for The Pas, Manitoba pulled by #6043 a Mountain class built in 1929. The loco is now in a park in Winnipeg sadly in relatively poor condition.
I remember this event well as I rode my bike, that would be bicycle, several miles to the CN westbound mainline to see it go by. It was a cold ride at that time of year here.
All of the examples of steam in the 1960’s were confined to one or two engines in service on an emergency service in a limited area. One branch. One commuter run. A couple month period. Certainly you can’t any class 1 N American railroad was a “steam railroad” in 1960 with only a couple engines running any more than you could say a road had dieselized with only 1 or 2 diesels on the property.
Steam as a major source of motive power was pretty much dead by 1955 or 1956.
Dave H.
The Duluth Missabe and Iron Range’s last steam powered ore train ran in June or July 1960 behind a 2-8-8-4; I believe smaller power (2-8-2’s etc.) stuck around until around the end of 1960.
One reason the Missabe was slow to dieselize was because they were a seasonal railroad - they had a long off-season while the Great Lakes were frozen over to work on maintenance of the engines and keep them in top condition. Another was that they had a lot of modern steam, only dating back to the 1940’s. It also was a corporate decision with US Steel, as diesels were delivered to other US Steel railroads, they would send their steam engines to the Missabe…kind of the way some railroads in the eighties put all their Alcos in one division to make maintenance easier.
A few small railroads ran steam later in the sixties, like the Duluth & NorthEastern (1964) or some smaller industrial railroads. In the south some lines ran steam a little later than that, but these were all pretty small isolated examples. In general 1960 was the real end of steam in the US for regular mainline duty.
The above was a true statement for a looooong time. N&W had to lash four to six GP-9s together to replace steam on most decent sized coal trains. In the mid-1990s they were using two or three BIG 12 wheel GE or EMD diesels for the Bonsack pusher job, where it was always one Y6b (yes, they had loaded freight running Eastbound over the original N&W main over Blue Ridge in the 90s). The diesels’ major advantage was a train only needed one front end crew, no matter how many engines they lashed together. The union’s “good” negotiating turned around and bit them, BAD. It should have been a warning of more dire events to come.
N&W didn’t need any excuses. They posted better results than all the neighboring fully dieselized roads, except VGN, throughout the 50s. They operated excellent steam locomotives, maintained in modern facilities. In their operating comparison tests with the best diesels of the day, there was no cost reason to go to diesels.
So a related question is, “who bought the last steam engine put in service?” Wasn’t a switcher for either C&O or B&O.