El Paso & Southwestern Steam Locomotives

El Paso & Southwestern Steam Locomotives
By Joseph A. Strapac

The El Paso & Southwestern was the largest single corporate acquisition that the Southern Pacific ever made—a century ago, when rail mergers were popular. Even though the EP&SW corporation disappeared in 1924, its steam locomotives became an active part of the Southern Pacific roster, a few lasting into the 1950s. Furthermore, the lines of the former EP&SW (from Tucson to El Paso to Tucumcari) were operated with coal fuel, requiring distinctive service facilities and specialized locomotive tenders.

While Vernon Glover’s El Paso & Southwestern Railroad System explains the history of the railroad from its beginnings until 1924, this new book (effectively a second volume) carries forward the story of EP&SW’s steam locomotives taken over by the SP, continuing through their final revenue service in 1959.

But wait, there’s more: the Southern Pacific chose to continue coal-fired locomotive operation in the former EP&SW territory, converting many of its own 2-10-2 locomotives from oil fuel to coal, then purchasing new coal-fuel 2-8-8-4 locomotives, and finally buying secondhand 2-8-4s in the days before dieselization.

With 221 pages and 250 pictures, maps and drawings, this new book takes the EP&SW locomotive story from its earliest days through the SP takeover, comprehensively illustrating the EP&SW fleet as it served the SP for nearly thirty years, all the way to final dieselization and beyond to preservation efforts on the three surviving steam engines. The story of Southern Pacific steam locomotives is now more nearly complete!

Hardcover, 81⁄2″x11″ landscape format with dust jacket.