Oil burning Consolidation type (2-8-0) #3 was built by the H. K. Porter Company in Pittsburgh, PA, as #1 for the Lyon Cypress Lumber Co., at Garyville, LA.
Some time in the 1920s, the locomotive was sold to the Louisiana Cypress Lumber Company where it was renumbered #3. The engine weighs 92,000 lbs, 82,00 lbs on its 41” drivers. With 16” x 22” cylinders, it operated at a boiler pressure of 180 psi delivering 19,580 lbs tractive effort.
Louisiana Cypress was formed in 1888 by Joseph Rathbone and operated a cypress lumber mill on the south side of Ponchatoula, LA.
The railroad also had a section of track extending out into the many cypress swamps east of the Illinois Central Railroad's main line. The operation ceased around 1955, by which time most of the cypress had been harvested from the swamps.
Apparently, the engine's crown sheet was at some time damaged when a night hostler let the water get too low and the locomotive was not considered worth repairing. Louisiana Cypress was then going to cut up #3 but scrap prices were too low so they parked it by the lumber yard in about 1947 until it was moved to present location.
#3 is on display in Ponchatoula, LA, next to the old Illinois Central, now Canadian National mainline.
The engine is in pretty bad shape and, despite an offer of private funding for the
purpose, the city does not appear interested in its upkeep.
