Wabash Steam Roster (Built Since 1900)

Last revised: October 31, 2026

The Wabash kept buying steam into 1931, and Decatur was still turning Mikado boilers into Hudsons in 1947. The quantity column on the post-1900 list is 708. Twenty-three Prairies rebuilt as Pacifics, and seven Mikados rebuilt as Hudsons, are listed again. Counted once, the frames are 678. Freight power from the Moguls of 1899 through the Mikados and the 2-10-2s was built around 64-inch drivers. The fast freight of the automobile years fell to the Mountains and the Northerns, with 70-inch drivers, and then to the diesels.

Wabash 0-6-0 546, Class B-7, at the Decatur shops in late 1952

0-6-0 No. 546, Class B-7, awaits its fate at the shops in Decatur, Illinois, in late 1952. Baldwin built the locomotive in October 1907, serial 31865. It was scrapped in April 1953. Fred Byerly photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Switchers · Moguls and Prairies · Mikados and 2-10-2s · Passenger power · Roster

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Wabash. Mark WAB. Company history
This table	Steam locomotives built since 1900. The 1899 Moguls stay, because they are the engines that finished the steam years
Switchers	124. Six-wheel and eight-wheel
Moguls	131. Classes F-4 through F-7, all with 64-inch drivers
Prairies	90. Class G-1. Twenty-three were rebuilt as Pacifics and are listed again
Consolidations	30 in the table, the ex-Wheeling & Lake Erie I-3s. Seventeen more, the I-2s, are named below and are outside the column
Mikados	168 in the column. Twenty were on the road as Class K-2 after the Pere Marquette trade. The column counts both sides of that trade
2-10-2s	25. Class L-1, Brooks, 1917
Atlantics	28. Classes E-2, E-3, and E-4
Ten-Wheelers	16. Classes H-11 and H-12
Pacifics	39. Sixteen J-1s built new in 1912, and twenty-three J-2 rebuilds
Hudsons	7. Class P-1, 700–706, rebuilt at Decatur in 1943–1947 from Mikados already in the column
Mountains	25. Class M-1, 2800–2824, Baldwin, 1930
Northerns	25. Class O-1, 2900–2924. The class page carries the engines
Quantity column	708
Unique frames	678
Survivor	Mogul 573, at the National Museum of Transportation. The museum classes it F-5. One of two Wabash steam locomotives preserved

Switchers

The twentieth-century switcher fleet was three groups of 0-6-0s and then the 0-8-0s. Baldwin built the sixteen Class B-6s, 509–524, in 1903 and 1904. The forty-two B-7s, 525–566, came from Baldwin and Rhode Island between 1906 and 1912. No. 546, above, is one of them. Between 1917 and 1923 the Wabash rebuilt nineteen Moguls into B-8s, 481–499. The donors are not named on this list, and the B-8s are counted as the switchers they became.

The eight-wheel switchers followed the United States Railroad Administration pattern: 25-by-28-inch cylinders, 52-inch drivers, and 55,781 pounds of tractive effort. Two engines, 1501 and 1502, Class C-1, are rebuilds of 1917. The railroad’s own list treats them as former I-2 Consolidations. Schenectady delivered twenty C-3s in 1923, 1525–1544, weighing 217,500 pounds. Lima delivered twenty-five C-4s in 1926, 1545–1569, slightly heavier. They were the only Lima locomotives the Wabash owned. The last of both 0-8-0 classes lasted into 1951–1954.

Wabash Class C-3 0-8-0 1540 at Decatur, Illinois, circa 1950

Class C-3 0-8-0 No. 1540 at Decatur, Illinois, circa 1950. Fred Byerly photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Moguls and Prairies

Four groups of 2-6-0s were built from 1899 through 1904, every one of them on 64-inch drivers. The F-4s and F-7s were built simple. The F-5s and F-6s were compounds and were later simpled. Richmond and Rhode Island built the twenty-four F-4s in 1899, numbered 751–778 and later scattered through 569–599. That second span is wider than twenty-four engines. Four more 1899 engines, 752–755, are the F-5s, later numbered inside 571–586. The two classes are separate groups, and their later numbers overlap. Sixty-six F-6s, 801–866, came from Richmond and Baldwin in 1901–1903. Baldwin’s thirty-seven F-7s, 867–903, followed in 1904.

Steam outlasted the main-line freight diesels on one branch. By the end of 1953 the road freight was diesel. The Bluffs–Keokuk line kept 1899 Moguls into 1955, because 124,000 pounds was all the Illinois River bridge would carry. Mogul No. 573, built by Rhode Island in 1899 as No. 754, was given to the National Museum of Transportation in 1955. The museum’s own collection page classes it F-5. It is one of two Wabash steam locomotives that survive. Nos. 582 and 589 left the roster in June and July 1928.

The modern freight engine of 1906 and 1907 was the Prairie. Ninety G-1s, 2001–2090, came from Baldwin and Rogers. They weighed 228,200 pounds and rolled on 64-inch drivers. Between 1916 and 1926 the shops rebuilt twenty-three of them into J-2 Pacifics. The table lists the ninety Prairies and the twenty-three Pacifics. They are the same frames.

Both groups of twentieth-century Consolidations were secondhand, bought in 1910 and 1911. Seventeen I-2s had been built by Brooks in 1905 for the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton. Those seventeen sit outside the quantity column. The two C-1 switchers are the rebuilds the railroad counted separately. Thirty I-3s, 2301–2330, were Baldwin engines of 1906 from the Wheeling & Lake Erie. They are the Consolidations in the column.

Mikados and 2-10-2s

The K-1 was the Wabash Mikado of 1912: sixty-three engines, 2401–2463, from Richmond, Baldwin, and Pittsburgh, with 64-inch drivers, 25½-by-30-inch cylinders, and an engine weight of 266,840 pounds. The next new freight power came in 1917 and 1918. Twenty-four of the K-1s were sold to the Algers, Winslow & Western, the Algoma Central & Hudson Bay, the Alton & Southern, and the Seaboard Air Line. Five of the Wabash numbers became Algoma Central 62 through 66: 2460, 2455, 2457, 2463, and 2458.

Schenectady delivered twenty United States Railroad Administration light Mikados in 1918, Class K-2, 2201–2220. They are shown with 64-inch drivers rather than the usual 63. Thicker tires may have been substituted. About a year later, 2213, 2214, 2215, 2218, and 2219 went to the Pere Marquette. Five Baldwin engines of 1918 came from Western Pacific 321–325 and took those same numbers. The column counts twenty Schenectady frames and five Baldwin frames. After the trade the Wabash had twenty K-2s.

The heavy Mikados were a Schenectady job of 1923 and 1925, still on 64-inch drivers, with 27-by-32-inch cylinders. Twenty-five K-3s, 2250–2274, came in 1923. The retirement column opens in 1944 because 2254 was scrapped that year. Five more engines of the same year, 2275–2279, were built with boosters and classed K-3b. They were new locomotives, not a later fitting. In 1925 the same works built twenty-five K-4s, 2720–2744, and twenty booster K-4bs, 2700–2719. Five K-5s, 2600–2604, were the three-cylinder engines: two 23-by-32-inch cylinders and a 23-by-28-inch cylinder between the frames.

The 2-10-2s belong with that freight program. Brooks built twenty-five L-1s in 1917, 2501–2525, on 64-inch drivers, and the weights ran from 325,000 to 338,580 pounds. They were the wrong engine once the railroad wanted faster freights. Thirteen were sold in 1941 and 1942 to the Kansas City Southern, the Missouri Pacific, and the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. The Chicago & Illinois Midland roster counts nine of these Brooks engines as its Class G-4, 651–659. Nos. 2503 and 2507 remained on the Wabash.

Passenger power

The Atlantics and Ten-Wheelers were the passenger engines of the new century. Richmond built six E-2s in 1901, 606–611, later carried as 694–699 and 624–629. Brooks built twelve E-3s in 1903, 612–623. Baldwin built ten E-4s in 1904, 602–611. Six H-11 Ten-Wheelers, Richmond, 1901, were 620–625 and later 630–635 and 1630–1635. Ten H-12s came from Baldwin in 1904, 636–645. The H-12s were gone by 1933. The E-4s lasted, some of them, until 1949.

The last new passenger steam, until the Hudson rebuilds, was the J-1 Pacific of 1912. Sixteen engines, 660–675: Richmond built 660–669 and Baldwin built 670–675. The J-2s were the twenty-three Prairie rebuilds. Six of them, 1676–1681, were finished in 1916 and 1917 for the Windsor–Buffalo trains. The American engines took 699 and then the next lower number as each one was completed, down through 683. Numbers 682 and 1682 were left vacant. The six Canadian engines were gone in 1951. The seventeen American rebuilds came off between 1947 and 1952.

During the war the Wabash had plenty of locomotives and not the ones the faster freights needed. The K-5 boilers were reused. In 1943 and 1944 Decatur built five 4-6-4s from those five boilers. In 1946 and 1947 the last two K-4s, 2743 and 2744, were called back for the same treatment. The seven Hudsons were Class P-1, 700–706, with 80-inch drivers. The builder on the list is the Wabash. The work was done at Decatur. They were off the roster in 1956. The table lists them, and it still lists the Mikados they had been.

The dual-service engines of 1930 were the end of new steam. Baldwin built twenty-five Class M-1 Mountains, 2800–2824, early in the year: 27-by-32-inch cylinders, 70-inch drivers, and 406,400 pounds. Tractive effort as built was 67,400 pounds. Boiler pressure was later raised. They worked the Montpelier–Decatur freight and, now and then, passenger trains. The same order produced twenty-five Class O-1 Northerns, 2900–2924, which went onto the freight roster from August 1930 through January 1931. Their story, including the Walschaerts and Baker split and the scrap dates of 1955 and 1956, is on the Class O-1 page. None of the Northerns was preserved. The Mountains’ retirement column on this list reads 1953.

Roster

The quantity column adds to 708. A blank cell is empty. Where a renumber series is longer than the quantity, the quantity is the figure in the table. The twenty-three J-2s and the seven P-1s are frames already counted as Prairies or Mikados. The seventeen I-2 Consolidations are not in the column.

Type	Class	Numbers	Qty	Builder	Built	Retired	Notes
0-6-0	B-6	509-524	16	Baldwin	1903-1904	1931-1947	—
0-6-0	B-7	525-566	42	Baldwin, Rhode Island	1906-1912	1949-1954	—
0-6-0	B-8	481-499	19	Wabash	1917-1923	1931-1938	Rebuilt from 2-6-0
0-8-0	C-1	1501, 1502	2	Rebuilt	1917	1947	—
0-8-0	C-3	1525-1544	20	Schenectady	1923	1951-1954	—
0-8-0	C-4	1545-1569	25	Lima	1926	1951-1954	—
2-6-0	F-4	751-778	24	Richmond, Rhode Island	1899	1927-1955	Renumbered 569-599
2-6-0	F-5	752-755	4	Rhode Island, Richmond	1899	1931-1953	Renumbered 571-586
2-6-0	F-6	801-866	66	Richmond, Baldwin	1901-1903	1930-1952	—
2-6-0	F-7	867-903	37	Baldwin	1904	1931-1947	—
2-6-2	G-1	2001-2090	90	Baldwin, Rogers	1906-1907	1934-1950	23 rebuilt to 4-6-2
2-8-0	I-3	2301-2330	30	Baldwin	1906	1939-1947	Ex-Wheeling & Lake Erie
2-8-2	K-1	2401-2463	63	Richmond, Baldwin, Pittsburgh	1912	1939-1954	—
2-8-2	K-2	2201-2220	20	Schenectady	1918	1949-1953	2213, 2214, 2215, 2218, 2219 to Pere Marquette
2-8-2	K-2	2213, 2214, 2215, 2218, 2219	5	Baldwin	1918	1951-1952	Ex-Western Pacific 321-325
2-8-2	K-3	2250-2274	25	Schenectady	1923	1944-1955	—
2-8-2	K-3b	2275-2279	5	Schenectady	1923	1951-1952	Built with boosters
2-8-2	K-4	2720-2744	25	Schenectady	1925	1951-1953	2743, 2744 rebuilt to 4-6-4
2-8-2	K-4b	2700-2719	20	Schenectady	1925	1951-1953	Built with boosters
2-8-2	K-5	2600-2604	5	Schenectady	1925	—	Rebuilt to 4-6-4
2-10-2	L-1	2501-2525	25	Brooks	1917	1950-1951	—
4-4-2	E-2	606-611	6	Richmond	1901	1931, 1933	Renumbered 694-699, 624-629
4-4-2	E-3	612-623	12	Brooks	1903	1933-1945	—
4-4-2	E-4	602-611	10	Baldwin	1904	1936-1949	—
4-6-0	H-11	620-625	6	Richmond	1901	1931	Renumbered 630-635, 1630-1635
4-6-0	H-12	636-645	10	Baldwin	1904	1931, 1933	—
4-6-2	J-1	660-675	16	Richmond, Baldwin	1912	1951-1954	—
4-6-2	J-2	683-699	17	Wabash	1916-1926	1947-1952	Ex-G-1. 682 vacant
4-6-2	J-2	1676-1681	6	Wabash	1916-1917	1951	Ex-G-1. Windsor-Buffalo. 1682 vacant
4-6-4	P-1	700-706	7	Wabash	1943-1947	1956	Decatur. From the K-5s and K-4s 2743, 2744
4-8-2	M-1	2800-2824	25	Baldwin	1930	1953	—
4-8-4	O-1	2900-2924	25	Baldwin	1930	1955-1956	—

Sources

Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives. Revised edition. The Wabash chapter, pp. 324–325.
Heimburger, Donald J. Wabash. Heimburger House, 1984.
National Museum of Transportation. Collection note for Mogul 573.
Wabash Railroad Historical Society. Class index.

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