Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

's AC-3 class of

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

was the 3rd and last

cab forward The term cab forward refers to various rail and road vehicle designs that place the driver's compartment substantially farther towards the front than is common practice. Rail locomotives In steam locomotive design, a cab forward design will ...

design based on the

2-8-8-2 A 2-8-8-2, in the Whyte notation for describing steam locomotive wheel arrangements, is an articulated locomotive with a two-wheel leading truck, two sets of eight driving wheels, and a two-wheel trailing truck. The equivalent UIC classification ...

wheel arrangement. All 20 locomotives in this class were rebuilds from MC-6 class locomotives originally built by

Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in the early 20th century. The company was for decades t ...

in 1912 and 1913. The rebuilds all took place in the late 1920s at Southern Pacific's

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

shops. After the rebuilds, these locomotives were used through

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The AC-3ś were used for long freight runs, and during World War II sometimes for passenger/troop cars. All of this class were

scrapped Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

soon after retirement. The first to be retired from active service were numbers 4040 and 4045, both on October 21, 1946; the last was number 4032 on August 8, 1949.

References

* Baldwin locomotives Mallet locomotives AC-03 2-8-8-2 locomotives Simple articulated locomotives Steam locomotives of the United States Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Railway locomotives introduced in 1912 {{steam-loco-stub Cab forward steam locomotives Freight locomotives