Sugar Pine Lumber Co. No. 5 “Minaret”

The Sugar Pine Lumber Co., founded in 1923, was a logging railroad in the Sierra Nevada in California that called itself the “crookedest railroad ever built”. Nevertheless, they used locomotives with multiple driving axles in one frame. This started with four 2-8-2 saddle tank locomotives built by ALCO. In need for even more power, they even ordered a 2-10-2 saddle tank in 1927.

Given the number 5 and called “Minaret”, it must have been the heaviest saddle tank locomotive ever and most likely also the only 2-10-2ST. After the SPL shut down its operations in 1935, No. 5 was used by several construction contractors. One was the Mason-Walsh-Atkinson-Kier & Co., which used in in the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and added an additional tender. The last operator was H. J. Kaiser Co., which scrapped it in 1947.