Southern Pacific Pacific Lines

Steam Locomotive Rosters for 1935 and 1941


These two rosters show safety valve application by individual locomotive. They seem to be accurate down to the month that each was produced (although in the case of the 1941, we do not know which month). The February 1935 does not show MM-2 locomotives, which all were (temporaily) vacated in January. As a whole, they give valuable insight into the overall pre-war motive power picture. Now, if somebody can come up with the original 1927 drawing upon which these two were based...


February 25, 1935

The effects of the Depression, and new motive power purchases just prior, are clearly evident here, as the pre-1900 classes are largely cleaned out. The most elderly loco on the roster appears to be T-2 #2174, one of three remaining
T-2's, which was built in 1888 for Northern Railway and scrapped two months shy of its 60th birthday in 1948. T-2 #2178 lasted even longer, until 1951!

Otherwise, just a smattering of 19th Century locos remained among 2-6-0, 4-6-0, 2-8-0 and 4-8-0 classes. A pair of the remaining six E-23 4-4-0's also dated (barely) to the 19th Century. The last of the other 4-4-0 classes were vacated the previous year.

Atlantics were another arrangement that suffered in the early 1930's, with less than half of the A-3's remaining, even including those four rebuilt into the A-6 class.

The true compound mallets were almost gone, with the MC classes down to six locos, two of which were vacated in December, while the other four received rebuilds later in the decade. By 1935, it is likely that the remaining MC's had been in the dead line for several years. One wonders if they saw their final service as compounds on the Modoc Line - for which they were perfectly suited - just as the rebuilt 4000's did in the late 1940's. The remaining seven MM-2's, as previously mentioned, were stricken from the roster in January, only to be reinstated for rebuilding starting in December. Those two MC's vacated that month must have been in sad shape.


1941 Roster

The exact month of production for this drawing is obscured, but it possibly dates as early as March 31, 1942, the day that A-3 #3052 (vacated in 1940) was reinstated to the roster - see photo in Diebert & Strapac's Compendium, pg. 201. The highest numbered AC shown, #4204, entered service in 1939, yet ten unlisted AC's through #4214 had actually entered service in 1942 by March 28. This discrepency has no explanation.

By now the A-3's are down to five locos, including #3029, the last inside-bearing, non-booster-equipped 4-4-2, which survived until 1947. The 4-4-0's were down to two, or three. The Compendium shows #1504 as scrapped in 1940, so likely it was listed in error on this roster. Nobody cared about 4-4-0's by then.