Cotton Belt 819
preserved American 4-8-4 locomotive
Cotton Belt 819 is a L-1 class 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive and is also the official state locomotive of Arkansas. It was completed in December 1942 and was the last engine built by the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, which was affectionately known as "The Cotton Belt Route" or simply "Cotton Belt". It was also the last locomotive built in Arkansas. It was restored to operating condition in April 1986 and operated in excursion service until October 1993. As of 2026, the locomotive is now located at the Arkansas Railroad Museum, where it is currently under restoration.
History
Background
The Cotton Belt initially ordered ten "Northern" 4-8-4s, Nos. 800–809, from the Baldwin Locomotive Works located at Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in August and September 1930 at a cost of $110,849 apiece. These new Cotton Belt 4-8-4 locomotives were classified as the L-1s and intermingled with the Southern Pacific GS-1 class. Seven years later, the Cotton Belt built five more L-1s, Nos.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7589697. Authority coordinates are 34.227, -91.985. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1986, 1993 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cotton Belt 819” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.