A Prairie type (2-6-2) locomotive, #2 is another difficult to photograph prospect. It was two of this type (#1 & #2) bought in 1916 by the Barfield Lumber Company in Polk City, FL. It was later sold to the Dowling & Camp Lumber Co., and switched at the company’s mill in Slater, FL, and then on to the Lee Tidewater Cypress Co., in Copeland, FL.
With a build identical to that shown on the Manatee Crate Company #2 page of this website, the engine weighs 764,000 lbs, 56,400 lbs on its 44” drivers. The driver wheelbase is 8’ and the engine wheelbase 22’ 9”. Equipped with Stephenson valve gear and 13” x 22” cylinders, it has a 13.3 sq ft grate, 74 sq ft firebox and total heating surface of 767 sq ft. Operating at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, it delivered 12,929 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 60,000 lbs light and has a capacity of 3,000 gallons of water.
#2, the smallest of the company's five steam locomotives, usually worked as the labour train, carrying girdlers and sawyers to logging sites in the swamp, leaving Copeland at about 5:15 am, Monday through Saturday and returning around 5:30 pm.
The five engines were retired in 1957 and later sold to collectors.
In 1962, #2 went to the Edaville Corporation and then, four years later, to R. L. Johnson & George Silcott who sold it to John Thompson in Chicago, IL. Thomson donated #2 to the Collier County Museum in Naples, FL.
