Steam & Excursion > Little Dumpy A Monticello

I've been posting photos taken at the Monticello Railway Museum for several years now.  Those photos have been of today's operations with the active roster of locomotives.  This set of photos runs back the clock forty years, taken at the museum by George Redmond in October, 1978, when it was known as the Monticello & Sangamon Valley and scanned from the original negatives.

The first locomotive on the roster was a small Alco 0-4-0T.  The locomotive was built by Alco in 1930, and was purchased Western Indiana Aggrigate in Montezuma, Indiana, and was brought to Monticell before there was a railroad to run her on.  The original operations were over several miles of rail, relaid by volunteers on the abandoned right-of-way of the Illinois Terminal northeast of Monticello and parallel to an active Illinois Central Gulf branch line.  The 0-4-0T was restored and converted to a tender engine, with the tender coming from the Illinois Central.  The tiny engine was nicknamed "Little Dumpy," and gained fame in a video called "Running A Steam Locomotive" back in the early eighties (it's still available on DVD, along with a pair of followup volumes).

These photos show Little Dumpy under steam, sitting alongside Southern Railway 2-8-0 #401 and headed east to White Heath at the switch to a track built to connect with the I.C.G. line that the museum would go on to purchase in 1987.

The museum has certainly grown in the forty years since these views!

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Isn’t “Little Dumpy” now restored to a tank engine and sitting off Iron Horse Place as a sorta sign for the Museum?

Posted from iPhone

Spoony81 Wrote:
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> Isn’t “Little Dumpy” now restored to a tank
> engine and sitting off Iron Horse Place as a sorta
> sign for the Museum?
>
> Posted from iPhone

That's the one.  She hasn't run since 1988, if I'm not mistaken.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

MaryMcPherson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Spoony81 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Isn’t “Little Dumpy” now restored to a
> tank
> > engine and sitting off Iron Horse Place as a
> sorta
> > sign for the Museum?
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> That's the one.  She hasn't run since 1988, if
> I'm not mistaken.


Thanks Mary

Erik

I sure enjoy your remembrances, Mary.  I wasn't aware the "sign loco" was the original #1, and featured in that video.  I saw that video and always wondered what happened to that lokie.  Now I know (thanks to Spoony81 too!). 

Thanks for a great post!

-Tom



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/18 21:08 by Sasquatch.

MaryMcPherson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Spoony81 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Isn’t “Little Dumpy” now restored to a
> tank
> > engine and sitting off Iron Horse Place as a
> sorta
> > sign for the Museum?
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> That's the one.  She hasn't run since 1988, if
> I'm not mistaken.

Here she is - July 19th, 2014:

/Mitch
 

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Hummm......a little weeding for a better view.

I got to ride her as a teenager.  The one and only visit there included my dad buying us tickets to ride in the cab.  Friendly crew and a neat experience I still remember.  Wish she were still operational.

 

Would they sell it?
What year did they convert her back to a tank engine?
Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/18 16:50 by CPRR.