The World's Smallest Standard Gauge Pacific: Little River Railroad 4-6-2 #110
(2001-??)

To this day Little River RR baby 4-6-2 #110 remains the smallest standard gauge pacific type steam locomotive ever constructed. With diminutive 47" drivers, 16" x 22" cylinders, a straight boiler, and distinctive cap stack, the 110 is a 1911 graduate of the Baldwin Locomotive Works; and amazingly, she is still in steam on a southern Michigan tourist railroad. Built originally for a lumber line located in the mountains south of Knoxville, Tennessee (my hometown), the 110 hauled tourists and vacationers into what is now the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and hardwood logs out. With the demise of the Little River Lumber Co. in 1939, she was sold to a Knoxville based shortline, the Smokey Mountain Railroad, where she received a new lease on life. When the fires on Ole' Smokey were put out during the 1950s, the 110 languished in Sevierville, TN. She was abandoned along with the abandonment of the Smokey Mountain itself in 1964, and rusted away beside a stretch of highway, midway between Knoxville and Sevierville, until 1972 when she was rescued by railfan Terry Bloom, hauled north to Michigan, and restored to operation. She has now been in Mr. Bloom's service longer than she ever was for either previous owner.

Research & Resources

My model of the 110 is, to the best of my knowledge, the only one ever attempted in large scale, and maybe the only one that has been constructed in any scale, oddly enough. The project began in 2000 as a first stab at producing a "quick and simple" 1:20.3 standard gauge locomotive that would get me onto the track in short order. My reasoning was this:

(1) Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette hard already published the basic elevation & section drawings in the mid 1980s.

(2) The rigid wheelbase of the locomotive was almost exactly that of the Bachman Big Hauler 4-6-0, making one of Barry Olsen's (Barry's Big Trains) replacement drives a viable mechanism, re-gauged with new axles of course.

(3) I had on hand Palacina Productions (now defunct) die-cast drivers of nearly the exact OD, within a scale inch.

(4) The rest of the locomotive, like the Gauge 3 2-4-4-2s I had begun, could be fabricated from styrene, pvc & brass.

Additional photographic materials were readily at hand through the help of my good friend Jim Thurston, then president of the Little River Railroad & Lumber Co. Museum located in Townsend, TN. Additionally, many other friends and acquaintances over the years have been making the trek to southern Michigan to photograph the 110. Here's a sample (Note: Drawings are large bitmap files):

Last update: 19 December 2011