A Ten Wheeler type (4-6-0) locomotive, #44 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, in January 1927 for the Hampton & Branchville Railroad, at that time, a logging railroad based in Hampton, SC.
The Hampton & Branchville was founded in 1891 and, for many years, served the region’s lumber industry on a twenty-four mile line from Hampton to Smoaks, SC, connecting with the Atlantic Coast Line at Hampton and Branchville Junction. In 1986, the company purchased the CSX line serving the South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, an electric generating plant at Canadys, SC, and now delivers coal trains to that facility from the CSX at Hampton.
A coal burner, #44 weighs 142,000 lbs, 110,000 lbs on its 51” drivers. With Walschaert valve gear and 19” x 26” cylinders, it has an engine wheelbase of 21’ 10” and driver wheelbase of 11’ 4”. The grate is 28.3 sq ft and the firebox 138 sq ft. Total heating surface is 1,888 sq ft including 314 sq ft superheating. Operating at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, it delivered 28,158 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 142,000 lbs light and has a capacity of 5,000 gallons of water and 8 tons of coal.
Retired in 1959, #44 was sold to the Charleston, SC, Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in June 1969. It appeared at the 1970 NRHS national convention held in Charleston and, after the convention, was said to have been used in and around the Southern Railway freight yard in Charleston.
Ownership was transferred to the South Carolina Railroad Museum in 1991, which has plans to restore it to operation, and it is now on display at the museum in Winnsboro, SC. #44 has never left the state of South Carolina.
