Construction and revenue service With an increase of traffic on the CB&Q, they needed more powerful locomotives to pull the heavier loads and increased number of cars hauled. In 1930, the CB&Q ordered eight 4-8-4 locomotives (Nos. 5600-5607) from the Baldwin Locomotive Works and classified them as O-5. Of the first six O-5s had fireboxes burning lignite coal while the last two took bituminous coal. No. 5607 had a booster that added 13,200 lbs (5,987 kg) tractive effort. One of the locomotives was reported to have pulled an 82-car mail train on October 17, 1944. Nos. 5600, 5602, 5604, 5605 and 5606 were fitted with Security circulators and reclassified as O-5A. , 1985Between 1936 and 1940, the CB&Q built their own versions of the O-5, following the success of the class, and they were classified as O-5A. Nos. 5614, 5620, 5626, 5627, 5629, and 5632 were converted to burn oil later in their service lives and were reclassified as O-5B. The O-5 class locomotives were capable at traveling at speeds as high as forty-five miles per hour while hauling 125 loaded cars. As the railroad invested in adding
EMD SD9 roadswitchers throughout the mid and late 1950s, the usefulness in the O-5's diminished, and most of them were put into storage, while those that remained in service were solely relegated to operate east of Lincoln, Nebraska. For two weeks in January 1957, eight O-5A locomotives were loaned to the
Grand Trunk Western (GTW), in response to the GTW leasing some of its 4-8-4's to its parent company, the
Canadian National, during a
locomotive fireman strike on the
Canadian Pacific. In July that same year, all six of the O-5B locomotives were removed from storage to operate in the Lincoln-Omaha divisions, in response to several diesel locomotives being transferred to serve that month's Nebraska wheat harvest. Beginning in 1960, No. 5632 was being used to pull additional excursion trains for the CB&Q's steam program, and this lasted until November 1, 1964, when the locomotive hauled its last train before its flue time expired. No. 5632 was subsequently disassembled for repairs, but by 1966, the railroad got a new president,
Louis W. Menk, who ended the program, and the repairs on 5632 were halted. ==Preservation==