Santa Maria Valley 1000
Santa Maria Valley Railroad
Steam-Powered Locomotive
Built by:
American Locomotive Company – 1920
Wheel Arrangement:
2-8-2 “Mikado”
Weight:
97 Tons
Donated by:
Santa Maria Valley Railroad – 1953
A.53.18.25
Like our Heisler No. 2 (Tour Stop “S”) this big 2-8-2 freight locomotive began its life on the Hetch Hetchy Railroad, as engine No. 4 working on the O’Shaughnessy Dam construction project. In 1924, after the dam was finished, most of the Hetch Hetchy locomotives were sold off to other railroads. Our 2-8-2 joined the roster of the Newaukum Valley Railroad in central Washington state and was renumbered “1000”. Service on the Newaukum Valley Railroad ended and in 1944 the locomotive was sold to the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, a 14-mile-long line on the California coast, north of Los Angeles. No. 1000 worked in and around Santa Maria until her retirement to Travel Town in 1953.
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More Interesting Information:
Just barely 2-years-old in September 1922, Hetch Hetchie R.R. No. 4 and her train wrecked on the way up to the O’Shaughnessy Dam site, spilling several carloads of concrete and other construction materials. But the mess was soon cleaned up and the engine repaired – ready to run for another 30 years!
Locomotive Classifications and Nicknames:
Railway locomotives come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. In December 1900, Frederick Methvan Whyte, a mechanical engineer with the New York Central Railroad, came up with a system to classify the various types of locomotives according to their wheel arrangement. Known as Whyte Notation, the system separates locomotives by noting the number of “pilot wheels”, “driving wheels” and “trailing wheels”. In addition to Whyte’s system, railroad workers gave ‘nicknames’ to many of the different locomotive classes as well. Scroll down to see an example of the Whyte Classification chart.
Note: Santa Maria Valley No. 1000 is a “2-8-2” class; the class is nicknamed “Mikado” after a group of 2-8-2 locomotives that were built in 1897 for the Nippon Railway of Japan by the Baldwin Locomotive Works.
