Louisville & Nashville Steam Roster (Post 1900)

Published: October 11, 2026

The Louisville & Nashville bought steam the way it bought bridges: enough engine for the job, and a second engine when the grade asked for one. Eight-coupled freight power, Pacifics and then Mountains on the limiteds, and a single class of 2-8-4s at the end. The roster carried no ten-coupled engines and no articulateds. The last steam operation was January 1957, class J-4 Mikado No. 1882, leased to the subsidiary Carrollton Railroad in northern Kentucky.

Louisville and Nashville 2-8-4 No. 1953, class M-1 Big Emma, near Winchester, Kentucky, on June 5, 1956

Class M-1 2-8-4 No. 1953, a Big Emma, near Winchester, Kentucky, on June 5, 1956. The class is the only L&N venture into a locomotive larger than a Mikado. None survive. Photographer unknown.

On this page: At a glance · Consolidations · Mikados and Big Emma · Pacifics and Mountains · Switchers · Roster built since 1900

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Louisville & Nashville. Mark LN. Company page: Louisville & Nashville
This roster	Engines built since 1900, after Drury, pages 201–204. The quantity column totals 1,196
Freight	Consolidations through class H-29A. Home-built Mikados, then 93 light USRA Mikados and 165 heavy USRA Mikados. Forty-two M-1 2-8-4s
Passenger	Pacifics K-1 through K-8. Twenty-two L-1 Mountains, 400–421
Switchers	Rebuilt 0-6-0s, 35 larger six-wheel engines in 2055–2089, and 60 eight-wheel switchers, classes C-1 and C-2
Last steam	January 1957. J-4 No. 1882, on the Carrollton Railroad
Preserved	K-1 Pacific No. 152, in operating condition at the Kentucky Railway Museum. The Big Emmas were scrapped

Roster follows Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives (revised edition), pages 201–204. Information compiled October 11, 2026.

Three hundred Consolidations, then the heavy ones

After 1900 the freight engine was a medium Consolidation. Classes H-23, H-25, and H-27, numbers 975–1280, came from Rogers, Baldwin, and South Louisville between 1903 and 1911, some 300 locomotives. All had 57-inch drivers. The H-23s and H-25s had 21-by-28-inch cylinders. The H-27s had 21-by-30. Weight ran from 183,400 to 196,000 pounds. The newer H-25s and H-27s had piston valves, Walschaerts gear, and superheaters.

The 94 heaviest Consolidations were classes H-28 and H-29, numbers 1281–1374, built at South Louisville in 1911 and 1914. The grid also separates an H-29A. They produced about 10,000 pounds more tractive effort than the H-25s and H-27s. Many H-29s had mechanical stokers and auxiliary water tenders and worked through the 1940s. Until the bridges on the Gulf coast were strengthened around 1940, Consolidations powered the fast freights into New Orleans.

Two H-24s were light engines of an older design, 154,000 pounds. Two H-26s had 51-inch drivers and were bought from the builder three years after they were constructed. The grid’s built year on the H-26s is 1907 and the retirement is 1940.

Home-built Mikados, the USRA engine, and Big Emma

South Louisville built 50 class J-1 Mikados in 1914–1918, with 57-inch drivers, long boilers, and mechanical stokers, for Eastern Kentucky coal moving to Cincinnati and Louisville. The grid splits them as 1416–1449, 2400–2415, and the J-1A block 1450–1461, and marks the first two blocks “All to J-1A.” Thirty-four J-2s followed in 1918–1921. They had 28-by-30-inch cylinders in place of 27-by-30, and they weighed 326,000 pounds in place of 302,000. No. 1480, the first J-2A, was finished at South Louisville in 1921 and was the heavier machine of that pair of classes.

The light USRA Mikados, class J-3, numbers 1500–1592, were 93 engines: Lima built 18 in 1919 and Alco built 75 in 1920–1923. Crews liked them. They gave less mechanical trouble than any other freight class, and they ran to New Orleans.

The heavy USRA Mikados were classes J-4 and J-4A, numbers 1750–1914, 165 engines. They had mechanical stokers. Many later received feedwater heaters, thermic syphons, and larger tenders. The final 24, Baldwin 1929, also received boosters. Those are the J-4As. They worked Cincinnati–Montgomery and Cincinnati–Corbin, and they ran to Atlanta, Mobile, Pensacola, Evansville, and East St. Louis, into the mid-1950s. The grid’s retirement cell on the J-4s reads 1951–. The cell is printed that way. No. 1882, one of them, was the engine still in steam in January 1957.

Brooks built one three-cylinder USRA heavy Mikado, No. 1999, class J-5, in 1924. It sat out the Depression, then worked the hump at DeCoursey Yard. Drury retires it in 1950.

The M-1 2-8-4s were 42 engines, and they were the largest the railroad could turn and house. The first 20, numbers 1950–1969, came from Baldwin in 1942 and 1944. Lima’s 22, numbers 1970–1991, came in 1949. The grid prints them as one row. They had 69-inch drivers, 25-by-32-inch cylinders, 265 pounds of pressure, and 65,290 pounds of tractive effort. A booster added 14,100 pounds for starting. Larger fireboxes, cast-steel frames and cylinders, roller bearings, and 12-wheel tenders went with a fuel saving of about 12 percent against the 2-8-2s.

They worked mostly on the Kentucky, Cincinnati, Cumberland Valley, and Eastern Kentucky divisions. On the Eastern Kentucky they regularly rolled 9,500-ton coal trains, 124 cars, from Neon to DeCoursey, with helpers on the short grades at Jackson and Ravenna. On the Cumberland Valley the trains were 8,300 tons to DeCoursey, again with helpers on two grades. During the war and just after it, four M-1s were assigned to passenger service between Cincinnati and Corbin. The railroad’s name for the class was Big Emma. Cumberland was suggested and never caught on. The type page is the 2-8-4.

In 1948 an M-1 was tested against a three-unit EMD F3 on the Cincinnati–Louisville line. The F3s won, and in 1949 the railroad decided to dieselize everything but the coalfield freights. Passenger service was fully dieselized by 1954. The M-1s were sidelined after 1956. The NC&StL merger in August 1957 brought enough diesels that by 1959 the last 2-8-4s could be sold for scrap. None survive.

The road had already decided, in 1940, against a 4-8-4 for the passenger trains north of Mobile. The 4-8-2s were too heavy for the bridges west of Mobile, and a 4-8-4 would have been heavier. It bought 16 EMD E6s instead, and ordered the first M-1s at the same time. What it did add, across the later steam fleet, were superheaters, feedwater heaters, stokers, mechanical lubricators, power reverse, firebox syphons, and overfire jets. Fast freight and the heavy limiteds received auxiliary or high-capacity tenders.

From the K-1 to a streamlined three-cylinder Pacific

By the 1890s the 4-6-0 had replaced the 4-4-0 as the mainline passenger engine. Some 35 larger Ten-Wheelers came from Cooke, Rogers, and Baldwin between 1890 and 1904. After 1905 the Pacific took that work. Some 4-4-0s stayed on locals and branches into the 1940s. The grid’s only post-1900 American is D-0 No. 7, Baldwin 1916, retired in 1947.

The first Pacifics were K-1s 150–154 from Rogers in 1905, light engines at 187,800 pounds, with 69-inch drivers and about 22,000 pounds more weight than the newest Ten-Wheelers. South Louisville then built 40 more: K-1s 155–174 and K-2s 175–194. The K-2s had superheaters, piston valves, and cylinders a half inch larger. Many K-1s were brought up to the same standard, including No. 152, which survives in operating condition at the Kentucky Railway Museum. The K-1s and K-2s took the Cincinnati–Atlanta and Cincinnati–New Orleans lines, and then most of them went to the flatter Gulf Coast and South Alabama divisions. One K-2 was rebuilt with a trailing-truck booster for the New Orleans Limited out of Mobile.

The K-3s and K-4s were slightly larger, with straight boilers, piston valves, superheaters, and fireboxes with divided or partly sloped grates. K-3s are 195–211. K-4s are 216–239, and 2212–2215 were classed K-4A and numbered apart for accounting reasons. The K-3s had 21½-by-28-inch cylinders, an inch larger than the K-2s, and weighed 211,500 pounds. The K-4s had 22-inch cylinders, weighed 233,300 pounds, and were the first L&N Pacifics with outside-journal trailing trucks. Castner’s prose dates the K-3 and K-4 building to 1912 and 1921. The table follows the grid.

In 1919 six USRA Pacifics arrived, class K-5, numbers 240–245: 25-by-28-inch cylinders, 73-inch drivers, 277,000 pounds, and about 7,000 pounds more tractive effort than the railroad’s own design. After the war, 20 more came: 264–271 from Baldwin in 1923 and 272–283 from Brooks in 1924. The grid prints that second block as one row. South Louisville built 18 more Pacifics, K-4B 246–263, almost identical to the prewar K-4s. The prose remembers 1919 and a first copy in 1923. The built cell reads 1920–1922. The K-5s took the top passenger trains on the northern divisions and later roamed the system. They were stoker-equipped.

Brooks built one three-cylinder USRA Pacific in 1925, No. 295, class K-7. It was stored in the 1930s, rebuilt at Louisville in 1940 without the middle cylinder, and streamlined for the L&N’s segment of the Chicago–Miami South Wind. Three more heavy Pacifics were streamlined in 1940 and 1941 for the Dixie Flagler and the South Wind.

Four Pacifics came from the Gulf, Mobile & Northern in the 1920s: class K-6, 296–299, Baldwin 1912. Seven more arrived with the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis in 1929: class K-8, 81–87, Richmond, built 1923–1927.

The Mountains were 22 class L-1 engines, numbers 400–421, based on the USRA light Mountain with 70-inch drivers in place of 69. Baldwin delivered 16 in 1926 and six more, slightly heavier, in 1930. They replaced K-5s on the heaviest limiteds between Cincinnati and Atlanta and down the main line to Birmingham. After 1940 they ranged as far south as Mobile. They were too heavy for the bridges on the Gulf Coast west of Mobile, and too heavy west to Evansville and East St. Louis. Some went into freight service in the early 1950s. In 1953 the 14 remaining 4-8-2s were renumbered 470–483 to open a block for GP7s. The grid’s retired cell reads 1951, and that is the cell in the table.

Nearly eighty small switchers, then the USRA 0-8-0

Yards were the province of 0-6-0s and 0-8-0s, with older Moguls and Consolidations still in that work. Nearly 80 small 0-6-0s were rebuilt in the early 1900s from Consolidations of the 1880s. Many were reboilered. They kept numbers in the 600, 700, and 800 series and lasted into the late 1940s. The grid’s rebuilt rows, classes B-5, B-7, B-9, B-10, and B-11, print quantities that add to 50. The prose figure and the table are both Castner’s, and the table is printed as the grid gives it.

Baldwin and Alco built 35 larger 0-6-0s, which the prose classes as B-4 and B-6, numbers 2055–2089, between 1903 and 1907. The grid prints the whole span as class B-4, in three rows. One of those rows, 2060–2069, is noted “Ex-H-3 2-8-0.” Three secondhand 0-6-0s arrived in the 1920s, two from American International Shipbuilding and one from the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis. B-0 No. 30 is the Henderson & St. Louis engine, a Baldwin of 1911, retired in 1948.

The heavy switchers were 60 eight-wheel engines, built 1919–1925. Thirty-four were homemade C-1s, numbers 2100–2117 and 2124–2139. Twenty-six were USRA-design C-2s, numbers 2118–2123 and 2140–2159. The C-1 boilers were similar in size to the home-built heavy 2-8-0s. The built cells on the C-1 rows read 1922–1923.

Louisville & Nashville steam locomotives built since 1900

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
0-6-0	B-0	30	1	Baldwin	1911	1948	Ex-LH&StL
0-6-0	B-4	2055–2059	5	Manchester	1903	1946–
0-6-0	B-4	2070–2089	20	Manchester, Rogers	1905, 1907	1934–1951
0-6-0	B-4	2060–2069	10	Baldwin	1903–1904		Ex-H-3 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-5	633–648	12	L&N			Ex-H-4 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-7	649–658	9	L&N			Ex-H-4 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-8	2090, 2091	2	Lima	1918		Ex-H-5 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-9	701–801	11	L&N			Ex-H-6 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-10	724–812	12	L&N			Ex-H-5 or H-6 2-8-0
0-6-0	B-11	704–805	6	L&N
0-8-0	C-1	2100–2117	18	L&N	1922–1923
0-8-0	C-1	2124–2139	16	L&N	1922–1923
0-8-0	C-2	2118–2123	6	Alco	1919		USRA design
0-8-0	C-2	2140–2159	20	Alco	1922–1925
2-6-0	F-8	545–549	5	Rogers	1906	1927–1930	Ex-L&A
2-6-0	F-9	550–556	7	Baldwin	1889–1907	1928–1934
2-8-0	H-18	909–923	15	Cooke	1899–1900	1928–1934
2-8-0	H-19	924–933	10	Rhode Island	1901	1933–1949
2-8-0	H-20	934–943	10	Cooke	1902	1928–1949
2-8-0	H-21	950–974	25	Rogers	1902–1903	1933–1934
2-8-0	H-23	975–994	20	Baldwin	1903	1933–
2-8-0	H-23	1000–1179	180	Baldwin, Rogers, L&N	1905–1907	1933–
2-8-0	H-24	848, 849	2	Rogers	1904	1948, 1947
2-8-0	H-25	1180–1233	54	Rogers, Baldwin, L&N	1907–1910	1947–
2-8-0	H-26	996, 997	2	Richmond	1907	1940
2-8-0	H-27	1234–1280	47	Baldwin, L&N	1910–1911	1934–1952
2-8-0	H-28	1281–1305	25	L&N	1911	1950–
2-8-0	H-29	1306–1350	45	L&N	1912–1913	1949–
2-8-0	H-29A	1351–1374	24	L&N	1913–1914	1949–
2-8-0	H-30	61, 62	2	Brooks	1922		Ex-C&M
2-8-2	J-1	1416–1449	35	L&N	1915, 1917	1950–	All to J-1A
2-8-2	J-1	2400–2415	15	L&N	1914	1950–	All to J-1A
2-8-2	J-1A	1450–1461	12	L&N	1918	1950–
2-8-2	J-2	1462–1479	18	L&N	1918–1919	1950–
2-8-2	J-2A	1480–1495	16	L&N	1921	1950–	1480 was the first J-2A, South Louisville, 1921
2-8-2	J-3	1500–1592	93	Lima, Alco	1919–1923	1951–	USRA light Mikado. Lima 18 in 1919, Alco 75 in 1920–1923
2-8-2	J-4	1750–1890	141	Brooks, Richmond	1918–1927	1951–	USRA heavy Mikado. 1882 was the last steam, January 1957
2-8-2	J-4A	1891–1914	24	Baldwin	1929		Boosters. The final 24 of the 165 heavy Mikados
2-8-2	J-5	1999	1	Brooks	1924	1950	3-cylinder. Hump engine at DeCoursey
2-8-4	M-1	1950–1991	42	BLW, Lima	1942–1949	1954–	Big Emma. 1950–1969 Baldwin, 1942 and 1944. 1970–1991 Lima, 1949
4-4-0	D-0	7	1	Baldwin	1916	1947
4-6-0	G-11	305–309	5	Rhode Island	1901	–1940
4-6-0	G-13	314	1	Baldwin	1903–1904	1934–1948	Ex-LH&StL
4-6-0	G-23	31–33	3	Baldwin	1912	1947–1951	Ex-LH&StL
4-6-2	K-1	150–174	25	Rogers, L&N	1905–1907	1940–1947	15 to K-2A. 150–154 Rogers, 1905. 152 is at the Kentucky Railway Museum
4-6-2	K-2	175–194	20	L&N	1909–1910	1940–1951	All to K-2A
4-6-2	K-3	195–211	17	L&N	1912–1913	1940–1951
4-6-2	K-4	216–239	24	L&N	1914–1918	1940–
4-6-2	K-4A	2212–2215	4	L&N	1914	1940–	Numbered apart for accounting
4-6-2	K-4B	246–263	18	L&N	1920–1922	1948–
4-6-2	K-5	240–245	6	Richmond	1919	1951–	USRA
4-6-2	K-5	264–283	20	Baldwin, Brooks	1923, 1924	1951–	264–271 Baldwin, 1923. 272–283 Brooks, 1924
4-6-2	K-6	296–299	4	Baldwin	1912	1950–1951	Ex-GM&N
4-6-2	K-7	295	1	Brooks	1925		3-cylinder. Rebuilt 1940 without the middle cylinder and streamlined for the South Wind
4-6-2	K-8	81–87	7	Richmond	1923–1927	1948	Ex-LH&StL. Acquired 1929
4-8-2	L-1	400–421	22	Baldwin	1926, 1930	1951	16 in 1926, six in 1930. 70-inch drivers. Renumbered 470–483 in 1953

The quantity column totals 1,196. On the two J-1 rows the printed quantities trade one locomotive with the number spans and still add to the 50 engines in the text. Several rebuilt 0-6-0 rows print a quantity smaller than a count of the numbers. The cells are Drury’s. There is no H-22. H-28, H-29, and H-29A are the 94 heavy Consolidations, 1281–1374. Class C-1 and class C-2 are the 60 eight-wheel switchers.

C&M Cumberland & Manchester. GM&N Gulf, Mobile & Northern. L&A Louisville & Atlantic. LH&StL Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis. BLW Baldwin.

Sources

George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, Louisville & Nashville, pp. 201–204. Chapter by Charles B. Castner. User photographs in Downloads\LN_Steam, October 2026. Class grid, specifications, and the January 1957 last steam run
Charles B. Castner, “Big Emma,” Trains, December 1972, p. 22. Recommended with the chapter
Richard E. Prince, Louisville & Nashville Steam Locomotives (1968). Recommended roster. Construction numbers from Prince are not added to this grid
Published rosters noted by Drury: Railroad Magazine, January 1936, p. 88, and June 1949, p. 112; Trains, March 1955, p. 27
Louisville & Nashville Railroad Historical Society, lnrr.org

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