Pere Marquette Steam Roster (Built Since 1900)

Published: October 28, 2026

The locomotive people remember from the Pere Marquette is the Berkshire. Lima built 39 of them between 1937 and 1944, and they were the fast freight engine on a railroad that had spent its first years behind light Consolidations.

Lima builder photo of Pere Marquette 2-8-4 1222, class N-1, circa 1941

A Lima builder photo of 2-8-4 No. 1222, class N-1, circa 1941. One of 12. Author’s collection.

On this page: At a glance · Consolidations and Mikados · Berkshires · Passenger locomotives · Switchers · Roster

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Pere Marquette. Company history
This table	Steam locomotives built since 1900
Moguls	22. Classes M and MM
Consolidations	165. Classes C-2, C-1, C, and SC, built 1901–1911
Mikados	55. Classes MK through MK-6
Americans	23. Classes A-4 and A-5
Ten-Wheelers	28. Classes T, TC, TA, TB, and T-5
Pacifics	27. Classes P-2, SP, SP-3, and SP-2
Santa Fe type	17. Fifteen class SF of 1918, and two class SF-6 from the Hocking Valley
Berkshires	39. Classes N, N-1, and N-2. Lima, 1937–1944
Six-wheel switchers	52. Class S-2. The numbers are not a continuous block
Eight-wheel switchers	75. Classes C-16, S-1, and S
Quantity column	503
Last new steam	Class N-2, Lima, February and March 1944
Last road steam	The Berkshires, late 1951. Some had been helpers out of Holland
Preserved	1223 at Grand Haven. 1225 at the Steam Railroading Institute, Owosso

Consolidations and Mikados

For most of its freight service the modern Pere Marquette relied on the 2-8-0. The Consolidations on this list are 165 engines, built from 1901 through 1911, by Brooks, Baldwin, and Alco. One hundred of them are class C-2. Their numbers are 273–350, 366–375, and 501–512, in eight batches, and the gap between 375 and 501 is real. The Americans occupy part of that gap. Class C-1 is the Brooks engines of 1903, numbers 351–365. Class C, Brooks, 1910 and 1911, and class SC, Brooks, 1911, are the later and heavier 2-8-0s, 25 engines each.

The road freight engine of the 1910s and 1920s was the Mikado. Fifty-five of them are on this list, which is the dual-service fleet the railroad was fielding by the mid-1930s. Ten MK-class engines came from Baldwin in 1913. The MK-1s are two groups: 14 from Lima in 1919, and 16 from Schenectady in 1918 on the United States Railroad Administration design. Ten MK-2s from Schenectady in 1927 followed that same design. Five MK-6s were secondhand Erie engines, built in 1911, 1912, and 1913, and they joined the Pere Marquette in 1929. Four were Baldwin. No. 1096 was Schenectady.

Fifteen 2-10-2s, class SF, came from Brooks in 1918. Two more, class SF-6, numbers 1198 and 1199, were Baldwin engines of 1919 that arrived from the Hocking Valley as its 141 and 143. They were gone in 1949. The class SF engines lasted into 1951 and 1952, which is to say they finished their careers lettered for the Chesapeake & Ohio and still doing Pere Marquette work.

Berkshires

By the middle of the 1930s the roster was falling behind the automobile and merchandise traffic. The Pere Marquette sat on the Van Sweringen lines’ Advisory Mechanical Committee, whose thinking had been shaped by Lima and by William E. Woodard. The committee’s engine for the Nickel Plate was the S-class 2-8-4. In 1937 the Pere Marquette ordered 15 of the same wheel arrangement, class N, numbers 1201–1215.

They were close to the Nickel Plate engines and slightly larger. Drivers were 69 inches. Cylinders were 26 by 34 inches, against the Nickel Plate’s 25 by 34. The Pere Marquette engines were 7,600 pounds heavier, at 436,500 pounds, and each developed more than 69,000 pounds of tractive effort. The tender was the Nickel Plate’s: 22 tons of coal and 22,000 gallons of water. Nos. 1211–1215 had trailing-truck boosters.

Bridges and clearances kept the 2-8-4s off the branches. Their territory was Chicago–Detroit by way of Grand Rapids, and Toledo–Saginaw. A few of them could be called dual-service engines on a diagram. Most were never given steam lines, and they could not run in passenger service. A bridge at the throat of Fort Street Depot in Detroit would not carry a 2-8-4. The clearances at Chicago Grand Central Station kept them out of that terminal as well.

Twelve more arrived in 1941, class N-1, numbers 1216–1227. They were slightly heavier than class N and otherwise the same engine, on built-up frames. The last twelve, class N-2, numbers 1228–1239, were delivered in February and March 1944. Their frames were cast steel rather than the built-up bolted frames of the earlier engines. The profile changed slightly, and the steam dome sat behind the sand box.

Lima builder photo of Pere Marquette 2-8-4 1237, class N-2, circa 1944

A Lima builder photo of 2-8-4 No. 1237, class N-2, circa 1944. One of 12, delivered in February and March of that year.

The Chesapeake & Ohio already had 139 2-8-4s of its own, the Kanawhas, when it absorbed the Pere Marquette in June 1947. The plan was to take the 39 Pere Marquette engines into that fleet. Class N, 1201–1215, was to become Chesapeake & Ohio class N-3, numbers 2685–2699. Class N-1, 1216–1227, was assigned 2650–2661. Class N-2, 1228–1239, was assigned 2670–2681. Equipment trusts required the locomotives to stay lettered Pere Marquette until the trusts expired, and only the first 15, the class N engines, actually received the new numbers. Nos. 1223 and 1225 kept their Pere Marquette numbers for the rest of their lives.

Dieselization of the road was finished in late 1951, when the last Berkshires were retired. Some of them had been working as helpers out of Holland. The steam fleet was mostly scrapped by 1961. Two of the 2-8-4s remain. No. 1223 is displayed at Grand Haven. No. 1225 operates at the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, and it was the basis for the locomotive in the 2004 film The Polar Express.

Passenger locomotives

The passenger fleet on this list was never large, and most of it was already old when the Berkshires arrived. Twenty-three Americans, classes A-4 and A-5, came from Brooks between 1901 and 1905 and were gone by the middle of the 1930s. Twenty-eight Ten-Wheelers covered the lighter trains and the branches. The single T-5, No. 182, was Manchester-built in 1902 and had been Orange & Northwestern 106. It was retired in 1922.

The Pacifics are 27 engines. Fifteen of them were built in 1914 or earlier: five P-2s from Schenectady in 1910, five class SP from Schenectady in 1911, and five SP-2s from Baldwin in 1914. Twelve medium SP-3s came from Brooks in 1921, numbers 711–722, and they were the modern passenger power until the E7s. The little Pacifics went with the 1946 streamliners. The SP-3s lasted until 1950. No. 713, one of the Brooks engines, drew Cincinnati–Detroit train 35 through Toledo. The Berkshires could not take that job. The Fort Street bridge and the missing steam lines saw to that.

Switchers

Yard power before the First World War was the 0-6-0. Class S-2 accounts for 52 of them, built by Brooks, Schenectady, and Rhode Island from 1902 through 1911. The numbers run through 401–499 and do not fill that block. They were retired between 1934 and 1948, which is when the NW2s were taking the yards.

The heavy switcher was the 0-8-0, bought from all three of the usual builders. Fifteen C-16s came from Schenectady in 1930, numbers 240–254. Fifty class S-1 engines, built from 1918 through 1929 by Pittsburgh, Cooke, and Baldwin, are scattered from 485 to 1339. The number cell is not a continuous block. Inside it are 485–494, later renumbered 1300–1309, the Schenectady engines 1310–1329 of 1923, and the Baldwin engines 1330–1339 of 1929. Ten more 0-8-0s, class S, numbers 1401–1410, came from Lima in 1920 and are a separate group from the S-1s. The 0-8-0s were among the first steam the diesels replaced after the war, and the last of them were gone in 1950 and 1951.

Roster

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
2-6-0	M	200–218	19	Brooks	1901–1904	1929–1944
2-6-0	MM	219–221	3	Cooke	1903	1927–1934
2-8-0	C-2	273–282	10	Alco	1905	1948
2-8-0	C-2	283–297	15	Baldwin	1905	1934
2-8-0	C-2	298–313	16	Alco	1905	1948
2-8-0	C-2	314–323	10	Alco	1904	1944
2-8-0	C-2	324–329	6	Alco	1903	1934
2-8-0	C-2	330–350	21	Brooks	1901	1935
2-8-0	C-2	366–375	10	Alco	1903	1945
2-8-0	C-2	501–512	12	Alco	1909	1948
2-8-0	C-1	351–365	15	Brooks	1903	1919–1945
2-8-0	C	601–625	25	Brooks	1910–1911	1950–1952
2-8-0	SC	901–925	25	Brooks	1911	1948–1951
2-8-2	MK	1001–1010	10	Baldwin	1913	1946–1948
2-8-2	MK-1	1011–1024	14	Lima	1919	1949–1951
2-8-2	MK-1	1025–1040	16	Schenectady	1918	1950–1951	USRA
2-8-2	MK-2	1041–1050	10	Schenectady	1927	1952	USRA
2-8-2	MK-6	1095, 1097–1099	4	Baldwin	1911–1913	1949	Ex-Erie. To the Pere Marquette in 1929
2-8-2	MK-6	1096	1	Schenectady	1912	1949	Ex-Erie. To the Pere Marquette in 1929
4-4-0	A-4	377–394	18	Brooks	1901–1905	1928–1934
4-4-0	A-5	395–399	5	Brooks	1901	1928–1934
4-6-0	T	150–159, 183–186	14	Brooks	1902–1903	1929–1934
4-6-0	TC	187–191	5	Pittsburgh	1903	1929–1930
4-6-0	TA	192–197	6	Brooks	1903	1927–1935
4-6-0	TB	198–199	2	Brooks	1902	1929
4-6-0	T-5	182	1	Manchester	1902	1922	Ex-Orange & Northwestern 106
4-6-2	P-2	701–705	5	Schenectady	1910	1944–1946
4-6-2	SP	706–710	5	Schenectady	1911	1947–1948
4-6-2	SP-3	711–722	12	Brooks	1921	1950
4-6-2	SP-2	725–729	5	Baldwin	1914	1948–1949
2-10-2	SF	1101–1115	15	Brooks	1918	1950–1952
2-10-2	SF-6	1198–1199	2	Baldwin	1919	1949	Ex-Hocking Valley 141 and 143
2-8-4	N	1201–1215	15	Lima	1937	1951	Renumbered Chesapeake & Ohio 2685–2699
2-8-4	N-1	1216–1227	12	Lima	1941	1951	Planned as Chesapeake & Ohio 2650–2661. Those numbers were not applied
2-8-4	N-2	1228–1239	12	Lima	1944	1951	Planned as Chesapeake & Ohio 2670–2681. Those numbers were not applied
0-6-0	S-2	401…499	52	Brooks, Schenectady, Rhode Island	1902–1911	1934–1948	Not a continuous block
0-8-0	C-16	240–254	15	Schenectady	1930	1951
0-8-0	S-1	485…1339	50	Pittsburgh, Cooke, Baldwin	1918–1929	1950–1951	Includes 485–494, later 1300–1309; 1310–1329; and 1330–1339. Not a continuous block
0-8-0	S	1401–1410	10	Lima	1920	1950–1951

Sources

George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition. Pere Marquette chapter by Kevin P. Keefe, pp. 272–274. The table is locomotives built since 1900. Class C-2 is printed here as the eight batches that add to 100.
Arthur B. Million and Thomas W. Dixon, Jr., Pere Marquette Power (Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society, 1984). The C-2 batches, the secondhand MK-6s, and the survivors.

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