In the year 1936, A.E. Brown recorded this view of Texas & Pacific locomotive #331 as she was running extra with a short freight. The location is east of the Cedar Grove tower located in Louisiana. Looking at the 1948 railroad Atlas, I see that the T&P crossed both the Southern Pacific and the Kansas City Southern in a place called Cedar Grove. This is now within the greater Shreveport area. I’m speculating that the tower was likely at one of those crossings.

I really like this scene, both the little train itself, and the countryside where it’s running. This is the flavor that I’m hoping to capture on my Louisiana Central model railroad pike that is presently under construction.

The #331 is a 4-6-0 “ten-wheeler” and she is an oil-burning, Class D-9 built by A.L. Cooke in May of 1903. She ran with a 200 psi boiler pressure feeding her 20″x26″ cylinders, those powering the 63″ drivers. She had a tractive effort of 28,000 lbs. I’ve seen photos of several of her sisters that had been out-shopped at some point, receiving piston valve cylinders and new outside valve gear. Some had their headlight location moved to the center of the smokebox door. I can’t say whether the #331 received that upgrade in its later years.

This photograph is part of the Louis Saillard collection that is being uploaded to the flickr website by Tony Howe.