Built as #6 in 1904 for the Ferrocarril Coahuila y Zacatecas by Burnham, Williams & Co., an early incarnation of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, this narrow gauge (36”) engine may have been the first Pacific (4-6-2) type locomotive to operate in Mexico.
The shortline CyZ carried copper ore from the Mazapil mines along a seventy-eight mile right of way from its main yard and shops in Saltillo, Coahuila, to a smelter in Concepcion del Oro, Zacatecas. In the 1970s, the CyZ was absorbed as a Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México branch. The NdeM standard gauged the line and it is still in use today.
Within a few years, #6 was converted to a Ten Wheeler
(4-6-0) and worked until 1965 when it was sold along with two 2-8-0s and about a dozen cars to the Early West Railway in Chino, CA, a group hoping to start a tourist excursion railroad in Pomona, CA. It was then displayed at a restaurant in Southern California before being sold privately and placed in storage near Lake Elsinore, CA. It went on display at its current location in the car park of the Keizer Station Shopping Center, Keizer, OR, in 2009.
An oil burner, #6 weighed 94,000 lbs as built, 78,000 lbs on its 42” drivers. It has a 22.6 sq ft grate, 75.5 sq ft firebox and total
heating surface of 1,517 sq ft. With 17” x 20” cylinders and Stephenson valve gear, it operated at a boiler pressure of 180 psi delivering 21,056 lbs tractive effort.
The tender weighs 75,000 lbs light.
