please help identify this locomotive?

Hi! I'm doing some detective work for a friend of mine, and I'd like to find out as much as I can about the steam locomotive in this photo (that's her granddad leaning out of the cab in the image).



I'm hoping for a builder's number and hopefully some info about when and to whom it was originally sold to. Any other information of interest would also be appreciated!

The lumber industry in east Texas has a relatively well documented history, and the markings "Miller Link Lumber Co, Orange TX" help narrow this down. I think the road number is "9" but I'm not absolutely sure. There's no information on the photo itself, but I thought the SLSF "FRISCO" gondola was interesting. My (uneducated and highly amateur) guess is that it's a Baldwin 4-6-0 manufactured around 1905-1910. I looked up several online resources for Baldwin locomotive sales records, and didn't come up with a solid match.

Based on this info from the Texas Transportation Archive, I'd wager the photo was taken between 1910-1920.
Miller-Link Lumber Co. tram at Lemonville (Orange County). Standard-gauge. Operating in 1920.
Miller-Link Lumber Co. tram at Newton (Newton County). Standard-gauge. Operating in 1910. Length, 3 miles.
Miller-Link Lumber Co. tram at Orange (Orange County). Standard-gauge. Operating by 1910 to at least 1920. Known mileage varied between 7 and 15 miles.

There's also some interesting data about Texas lumber and railroad owner Leopold Miller being on the board of the Orange and Northwestern Railroad. I wondered whether the locomotive was originally sold to another line and acquired through the myriad takeovers and mergers that happened at this time in Texas railroad history. Additional information about Miller's sawmill operations and railroad activity is here and here.

I'll be grateful for any information you could offer that gets us further down the line.

Thanks!
Chris Westling

I believe the Powell Lumber Co bought out all assets of Miller-Link in 1922, including nine locomotives. According to the Railway Age Gazette, Miller-Link purchased a locomotive in 1910 from Lima. (tho probably a 3 truck Shay)

Thanks! I didn't know about Railway Age Gazette. The fact that it is fully digitized via Google books makes it very easy to search and cross reference. What a great resource!

That is definitely a Lima.

It is c/n 1104 built 3-1910 as Miller-Link Lbr #9. 48" driver, 17x24 cylinders and weighed 51 tons. Very nice photo! Thanks for sharing. I think I have a builders photo of the engine, too. The engine was sold to Peavy-Moore Lumber Co. #117, Deweyville, TX, on March 23, 1923; then to Newton County Lumber Co.; then to Soltz Machinery & Supply Co., Pine Bluff, AR, on February 12, 1945. I think I have a photo of it as Peavy-Moore 117, too. Be glad to send you any of these if you would like.

Tony Howe
Hattiesburg, MS

tuxachanie wrote:That is definitely a Lima.

It is c/n 1104 built 3-1910 as Miller-Link Lbr #9. 48" driver, 17x24 cylinders and weighed 51 tons. Very nice photo! Thanks for sharing. I think I have a builders photo of the engine, too. The engine was sold to Peavy-Moore Lumber Co. #117, Deweyville, TX, on March 23, 1923; then to Newton County Lumber Co.; then to Soltz Machinery & Supply Co., Pine Bluff, AR, on February 12, 1945. I think I have a photo of it as Peavy-Moore 117, too. Be glad to send you any of these if you would like.

Tony Howe
Hattiesburg, MS

Smaller-boilered locos, with larger domes, could often be told apart from the shape of the domes. Baldwin, Lima, ALCO, Vulcan, and Porter had their own sort of "trademark" domes. Like today's look-alike cookie cutter cars, you need a "something" to be able to tell the builders apart.