C&S class B-4S 2-8-0s 520-531 were built in 1903 as tandem compounds and simpled in the 1920s with large 22.5x32" cylinders. They also received Walschaerts valve gear, Schmidt type E superheaters and Locomotive Stoker Co. type D tender coal pushers. Coupled with their 57" drivers and total engine weight of 206,100 pounds, they exerted a tractive effort of 45,980 pounds, compared to the 40,400 pounds of a 202,600-pound Q D-4 Consolidation. So even though the Q was ridding itself of its remaining D-4s during the 1940s in favor of R-4 and R-5 Prairies, the C&S B-4S Consolidations looked good to the parent company and the Q began to "borrow" them in 1929, the first one -- C&S 524 -- going to the Creston Division. By 1931 there were three on the St. Joseph Division in addition to the one on the Creston Division, and by 1933 there were three on the Galesburg Division (which had succeeded the Creston and Ottumwa divisions in Iowa), another on the Lincoln Division and one on the Alliance Division. That latter one, C&S 530, appears on assignment sheets as a lignite burner, meaning it was not operated on the Deadwood Branch, where the Forest Service required the use of oil fuel to prevent forest fires, so just where it was used remains something of a mystery. But it remained on the Alliance Division through 1940. There were five of the B-4S engines on the Q most of the time from 1933 through 1940, and the final one, the 521, was returned in early 1945.
Main rod and eccentric rod removed and lying on the running board, stack capped and cab windows boarded up, C&S is in transit from one point to another during its assignment to the Lincoln and Ottumwa divisions in the 1930s. These big C&S Consolidations received cuckoo clock headlights during their stay on the Q.
Resting in Des Moines sometime during 1937 beside the gas-electric motor car that handled the daily passenger run originating on the mainline at Galesburg and traversing the branch from Albia up to Iowa's largest city, C&S 527 was in all likelihood assigned to the way freight on the branch. After a brief stint on the Galesburg division during 1933, the 527 came east again in early 1937 and worked on the Ottumwa Division and its successor, the Galesburg Division, until early 1942, when it was sent back home to Colorado.
Switching at Pacific Junction, Iowa, on Nov. 28, 1937, C&S 528 had virtually the same career on the Q as sister 527, remaining on its final Galesburg Division assignment in Iowa a month or two longer than the 527. Back home on the C&S, most of these former tandem compounds lasted into the early and mid-1950s.
