| This is another example of the ingenuity of the Great Northern Shops who could take an older, slow moving, odd 2-6-8-0 articulated loco and rebuild it into a powerful and fast 2-8-2 Mikado like this GN #3390. Starting in 1926-28, the Shops converted the M-2 class of 2-6-8-0's into the O-7 class but then rebuilt and redesigned them in 1944-46 again into even more powerful O-8 class of Mikados. Specs - class O-7, 69" drivers, 210 psi boiler pressure, 31x32" cylinders, engine weight of 348,000 lb, impressive tractive effort of 79,554 lb. The loco was retired and scrapped sometime between March and May of 1958. No date was given for the photo so an approximate one was used. No photographer was listed for the photo although it may have been Robert Graham. |