Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

'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, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

was the 3rd and last

cab forward The term cab forward refers to various Rail transport, 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-forwa ...

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 railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, Eddystone in the early 20th century. The com ...

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

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

shops. After the rebuilds, these locomotives were used through

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. 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 Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on i ...

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 Cab forward steam locomotives Freight locomotives {{US-train-stub