Great Northern Class O-2

The Great Northern Railway O-2 class was a 2-8-2 "Mikado" type Steam Locomotive originally built for the South Dakota Central Railway before being acquired by the GN Ry. in 1916.
== Great Northern Railway #3149 ==
GN Ry. #3149 was the only member of the O-2 class Mikado's as not much was known about its life, it was built in October 1915 by the American Locomotive Company's Brooks Plant for freight/mixed service on the South Dakota Central Railway as their #18. Months later the railway became the Watertown and Souix Falls in 1916 as it kept its number. A 100-mile short line between Watertown and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the line had a troubled Financial history as a tragic accident that year lead a court to direct its sale to the GN Ry. As the Great Northern Railway acquired the small railway that year, the railway and the engine became property of the GN. The Great Northern owning the locomotive in South Dakota and Minnesota renumbered the engine in 1921 to Great Northern Railway #3149 as the Railroad's only O-2. This locomotive notably was the smallest and least powerful of all GN's 2-8-2 Mikado fleets, having very small 52" drivers with a thin radial-stay boiler holding 180 Lbs. PSI. driving 20" x 28" cylinders putting out 32,950 Lbs. of tractive effort. Although not an impressive locomotive, the only O-2 interested the GN Ry. enough that it kept the engine in service for more than two decades and at some point installed a Superheater in the locomotive's boiler. It was always hand-fired as a Coal burner and stayed in service through World War II, as modern times came the GN retired the locomotive in April 1947, where it was scrapped in Minneapolis, Minnesota in March 1949.
== Trivia ==
* The single O-2 was one of only two classes of GN 2-8-2s to have a radial-stay firebox boiler rather than all other classes having Belpaire boilers.
* #3149 was one of only six 2-8-2s the GN purchased secondhand, the other five being rejected O-3s from the El Paso and Southwestern.
Category:2-8-2 locomotives
Category:Built in 1915
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:2-8-2 steam locomotives
Category:Great Northern (US) locomotives
Category:4 foot 8 1⁄2 inch gauge
Category:American steam locomotives
Category:American locomotives
Category:Mikados
Category:Eight-coupled locomotives
Category:ALCO locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:Scrapped steam locomotives
Category:Scrapped locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives of the United States