The Forney “Tallulah”, later known as the “Maud”, is today the oldest surviving locomotive of the Southern Railway. Built for the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line in 1879, she was most likely used on commuter trains, although few records exist from this period. She finally came to the Southern in 1894 via the Richmond and Danville Railroad.

Exact records are only existing since 1903, when she was given the number 1509 as part of a rebuild and was called “Maud” by the staff. She was now used as a switcher, which was probably also the case in the years before. She was retired in 1950 and saved from the scrapyard due to her popularity with employees. Today she resides disassembled at the South Eastern Railroad Museum in Duluth, Georgia, waiting to be reassembled and restored.

The class K designated a class of standard Consolidations of the Southern, with over 500 built beginning in 1903. The first 128 locomotives had a boiler with 437 smoke tubes, the later ones only had 403 tubes. In addition to the Southern, the subsidiaries also received a three-digit number of the second version. From 1921, a total of 393 units were equipped with a superheater, the valve chest was also replaced and the class designation was changed to “Ks”. Depending on whether the individual locomotives had been rebuilt, they were taken out of service towards the end of the 1930s or even survived the early 1950s.

Based on the Ls-1 class Mallets, the Southern had the No. 4050 built in 1926 with simple expansion and a slightly smaller boiler. Since this proved its worth, four Ls-1 were also converted to simple expansion and in 1928 a further eight locomotives were built again with a larger boiler. This was more efficient mainly because of the thermic syphons. They also received larger tenders and now formed the Ls-2 class. They were the Southern's most powerful locomotives and were also used on the almost five percent steep Saluda Grade.

The first Mikados that the Southern Railway procured were initially called class K and later renamed Ms. Between 1911 and 1914, a total of 135 units were delivered directly to the Southern by Baldwin and ALCO-Richmond. Together with the subsidiaries, the total number reached over 180, even if some locomotives there had differences.

The fireboxes of the locomotives were prepared directly by the manufacturers to accommodate arch tubes, but these were only installed later. Some were equipped with tractor tenders specifically for Saluda, the seven most successful of which were designated the Ms-2 class. The number 4501, which was used for special trips from 1966, is still operational today at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

For the well-known Saluda grade of more than four percent, the Southern was looking for a locomotive with a particularly high tractive effort. This is where the idea came up of accommodating additional driven axles in the tender and thus using the tender as an additional adhesive weight. There were several designs, of which only the Ms-2 made it to seven.

As with all of these experimental machines, the Ms-2 was created from a conventional steam locomotive and the frame of another, older locomotive, on which a tender body was mounted. The modern class Ms Mikado was used as the locomotive, while the frame of the tender came from an older Consolidation. The five machines assembled in this way left the Southern Railway workshops in Spencer, North Carolina in 1915. A pipe went directly from the superheater exit into the tender, supplying steam to the rear engine when needed.

While the locomotive's coupling wheels were 63 inches, the tender's coupling wheels were only 50 inches, which must have led to an unusual exhaust noise. The tender's cylinders were bushed from the original 20 to 18 inches in diameter. The cylinders of the locomotive were also bushed from 27 to 26 inches to save steam. Compared to the original Ms, 1,400 instead of the previous 1,100 tons could now be towed on a gradient of 1.7 percent.

In addition to the Ms-2, other Mikados were built with a tender with a 2-6-0 wheel arrangement or locomotives with a 2-10-2 wheel arrangement with a tender with a 2-6-0 wheel arrangement. What they all had in common was the clearly decreasing tractive effort as the tender emptied. While tank locomotives still have a significant weight even with almost empty supplies, the empty weight of the tender was very low. In addition, the exhaust from the rear engine was blown into the air above the tender, which must have reduced the draft in the boiler. Just a few years later, the Ls-1 class Mallets took over the Saluda grade.

The Ps-4 was Southern's premier class of Pacifics and also one of the most famous passenger steam locomotives in the United States. It was based on the USRA Heavy Pacific but had some adjustments such as smaller drivers, a shorter boiler and depending on the batch a Worthington or Elasco feedwater heater. Even with the driver diameter of 73 inches, they could pull 14 cars at 80 mph (129 km/h).

In two batches, a total of 44 Ps-4s were delivered to the Southern, twelve to the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific and eight to the Alabama Great Southern. The second batch locomotives were initially painted in a special Virginia Green and Gold livery following President Fairfax Harrison's visit to Great Britain. Today only number 1401 remains, which is not operational.

In 1893 and 1894 the Richmond & Danville Railroad received a total of 14 ten-wheelers. Nine of these came from Baldwin and five from Richmond. The locomotives of the two manufacturers hardly differed, a small difference was the grate area of 27.9 and 28.2 square feet respectively.

One of the Baldwin locomotives had a Vauclain compound engine with four cylinders and a slightly higher boiler pressure. It was initially built with 14 and 24 inches diameter cylinders, but was rebuilt directly to 15 and 25 inches diameters.

When the Richmond & Danville was bought up by the Southern Railway in 1894, the locomotives were reclassified to the class F-1. Also in this class were other similar engines built directly for the Southern at about the same time. The scrapping of the 14 locomotives of the former class 820 took place between 1932 and 1939.