Let me add a question about another steam last. What was the last common carrier in the US to run a wood burning steam locomotive? I think it may have been one of two north Florida roads, either the LOP&G or the Marianna & Blounstown. I believe both ran wood burners until sometime in the 1950’s. I’d love to see photos of their engines and hopefully someone will post or link one in a reply. I think it was in Beebe’s Mixed Train Daily (which I no longer have) that I once saw a pic of a cabbage stack “Loping Gopher” wood burner pulling a short mixed train across a wooden trestle. In 1959 or 60 I visited the M&B but by that time their wood burner had been replaced by what looked to be an ex-army 44 ton center cab diesel switcher. I went back that way about 10 years ago and couldn’t even find a trace of the old ROW.
In the late 40’s and early 50’s I had several occasions to see two Florida wood burners in actual operation though they weren’t common carrier’s engines. One was a spit and polish 2-6-2 that worked the trackage of a large sawmill in Shamrock on the ACL’s Perry Cutoff. The other was also a Prarie, but a very scruffy looking and neglected one, that belonged to the Manatee Crate Co. in what at the time was East Bradenton on the Seaboard’s Tampa - Venice branch. Both engines burned pine sawmill slats.
Mark