Two-truck Shay locomotive #2 was built in 1907 for the Bering, Kiam & Southern Railroad in Bering, TX, at the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, OH. Unfortunately, it was overcast and raining heavily when I visited #2 and, as some of the photographs on this page show, I had trouble getting the engine in focus.
As built, #2 was a wood burner (the bunker had a capacity of 2 cords of wood and 2,000 gallons of water) but was converted to a coal burner at some time during its career. It weighs 68,900 lbs with 29½ drivers and three vertically mounted 10” x 12” cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, it delivered 16,900 lbs tractive effort.
#2 was sold to W. T. Carter in Camden, TX, and worked on the company's Moscow, Camden & St. Augustine line until it went into storage in Camden in the 1920s.
It was donated to the Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX, in 1970.
