McCloud River Railroad Company
Locomotive #14

Baldwin 2-8-2
Built- 5/1907
c/n- 30850
Drivers- 48"
Cylinders- 20x28
Weight- 179,000 lbs.
Boiler pressure- 180 lbs.
Tractive effort- 35,700 lbs.
Baldwin built the first steam locomotives with two pilot wheels, eight drivers, and two trailing wheels for a Japanese customer in 1897, and for this the wheel arrangement became known as the Mikado. The Denver & Rio Grande Western acquired the first Mikados used on the North American continent in 1903, and then in 1904 Baldwin built the first example of the type in the 90-ton weight class for an Alabama mining firm. The McCloud River #14 and #15 were the first of fifty-three similar 90-ton Mikados Baldwin would build for the domestic market between 1907 and 1929, mostly for the shortline and logging market. Their success prompted other manufacturers, especially American and Porter, to build 90-ton Mikados of their own, and Baldwin built many more such machines in weight classes as light as 50 tons.
Builder's photograph of the #14.
Doug Richter caught the #14 on the McCloud turntable on 11 July 1938. The engine has recieved numerous modifications and upgrades in the thirty-one years since it posed on Baldwin's turntable, the most obvious of which are the superheating which has added the piping running from the top of the cylinder into the smokebox, the generator just aft of the rear sand dome, a single air pump to complement the one already installed on the fireman's side, and a new injector mounted on the top of the boiler.
The engineer's side of #14 in a negative dated 22 July 1939.
The fireman's side of the #14, also dated 22 July 1939.
The #14 switching cars out of the Horr Mill in Pondosa.
The #14 next to the Pondosa tanks. Note the original wood cab has been replaced with a steel cab, the headlight has been relocated to the center of the smokebox, and the air pump on the engineer's side has been removed. Jeff Moore collection.
Another shot of the #14 in Pondosa, this one shot by Max Miller on 3 Setpember 1948. The Ben Cheney lumber mill sawdust burner is visible in the background.
The #14 in McCloud near the end of its life. D.S. Richer/Al Farrow photo.