The GS-6 is a class of semi-streamlined 4-8-4 "Northern" type

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 ...

operated by the

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 ...

(SP) from 1943 to 1958 and the

Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dire ...

(WP) from 1943 to 1953. A total of sixteen were built by the

Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between ...

, numbered 4460 through 4469 by SP and 481 through 486 by WP. GS stands for "Golden State" or "General Service."

History

When the Southern Pacific Railroad placed an order for fourteen new "Daylight" locomotives from Lima in 1943,

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 ...

was raging and the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Sup ...

restricted what types of locomotives could be manufactured. SP's order was turned down, with the government deciding that streamlined passenger engines were not necessary to move wartime traffic. Southern Pacific re-designed the engines for general service and the order was finally approved. The smaller and power-starved Western Pacific Railroad was also looking for locomotives at the time and had first requested diesels, then a different style of steam locomotive. The War Production Board instead diverted six GS-6s (reportedly to have been numbered SP 4470-4475) to the WP. SP patented items were not included and the WP requested Franklin boosters be installed, making them slightly different from the SP engines upon delivery. The WP referred to them as GS-64-77s. The GS-6 looked similar to the GS-2, with a silver

smokebox A smokebox is one of the major basic parts of a steam locomotive exhaust system. Smoke and hot gases pass from the firebox through tubes where they pass heat to the surrounding water in the boiler. The smoke then enters the smokebox, and is e ...

with a cone-shaped single headlight casing and drivers. Like all GS engines, they had teardrop classification lights and an

air horn An air horn is a pneumatic device designed to create an extremely loud noise for signaling purposes. It usually consists of a source which produces compressed air, which passes into a horn through a reed or diaphragm. The stream of air caus ...

to supplement their

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a larg ...

. They retained the skyline casing on the top of the boiler but did not have the side skirting of previous GS locomotives. Southern Pacific's GS-6s also lacked the orange and red "Daylight" paint scheme that the previous GS engines so famously wore. Western Pacific's GS-6s received " elephant ears" similar to that of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

's 4-8-4 locomotives. The GS-6s were used by Southern Pacific for the ''

San Joaquin Daylight The ''San Joaquin Daylight'' was a Southern Pacific passenger train (train numbers 51 and 52) inaugurated between Los Angeles and San Francisco's Oakland Pier by way of the San Joaquin Valley and Tehachapi Pass on July 4, 1941. Travel times were ...

'', as well as San Jose-

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Peninsula Commute The Peninsula Commute, also known as the Southern Pacific Peninsula or just Peninsula, was the common name for commuter rail service between San Jose, California and San Francisco, California on the San Francisco Peninsula. This service ran as a ...

'' service and freight service. The Western Pacific used its GS-6s (GS-64s as WP classified them) on passenger trains and in freight service as well. They acquired a different look from their SP sisters when the WP applied the "elephant ear" style smoke deflectors to all six locomotives. When the Western Pacific dieselized in 1953 they sold three GS-64 engines (WP 481, 484, and 485) to Southern Pacific for spare parts, but kept the tenders and converted them to steam generators for

rotary snowplow A rotary snowplow (American English) or rotary snowplough is a piece of railroad snow removal equipment with a large circular set of blades on its front end that rotate to cut through the snow on the track ahead of it. The precursor to the rotary ...

Preservation

One GS-6 survives today,

Southern Pacific 4460 Southern Pacific 4460 is the only surviving class " GS-6" steam locomotive, together with " GS-4" class Southern Pacific 4449, which is operational in excursion service. The GS-6 is a semi-streamlined 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive. GS s ...

(the first one to be built), which pulled the final movement of steam on the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1958. It was donated to the

National Museum of Transportation The National Museum of Transportation (NMOT) is a private, 42-acre transportation museum in the Kirkwood suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1944, it restores, preserves, and displays a wide variety of vehicles spanning 15 decades of Americ ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, where it has remained ever since. Also, the tender of Western Pacific GS-6 No. 484, which was used in its final years as a water and fuel tank for a rotary snowplow, is stored at the

Western Pacific Railroad Museum The Western Pacific Railroad Museum (WPRM) in Portola, California, known as the Portola Railroad Museum until January 1, 2006, is a heritage railroad and archives that preserves and operates historic American railroad equipment and preserves docu ...

Portola, California Portola ( ) is the only incorporated city in Plumas County, California, United States. The population was 2,104 at the 2010 census, down from 2,227 at the 2000 census. Portola is located on the Middle Fork of the Feather River and was named afte ...

References

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External links

Southern Pacific 4-8-4 "Northern" Type Locomotives

Western Pacific 4-8-4 "Northern" Type Locomotives
{{SP GS locomotives 4-8-4 locomotives GS-6 Western Pacific Railroad locomotives Lima locomotives Passenger locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1943 Steam locomotives of the United States Standard gauge locomotives of the United States