Steam & Excursion > Magma Arizona #7 - semioffical portrait.

Maydelle, Texas, April 18, 2014.

Ran on the East Egg Express last weekend.

Going into regular service starting this weekend in Rusk.

Magma 7 will be pulling our annual photographers special out of Palestine on May 3.

Come see and ride. She's a fine mill.

Earl

TSR

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Simply Stunning! Thanks earl.

Martin

Nice job, Earl, she looks so much better.

Let me check the calendar...is it 1962???

Oh Yes,very nice...Well done Earl&Co.

Cheers, Dave

I am so proud of the TSR and Earl, your truly are the man!

Posted from Android

Great job Earl, right up to your high standards.

Very nice!

Wow! One nice looking steam locomotive!

Congratulations to the team that rebuilt this steamer

Pat
South Austin, TX

Simply Gorgeous!

Earl, Steve and the TSRR crews have worked hard on #7 and are rightly very proud of their work.

And,, #7 sounds as good as it looks!

Was this the locomotive used in How the West Was Won?

A very handsome and proportionally sized engine!

TomPlatten Wrote:
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> Was this the locomotive used in How the West Was
> Won?


She was indeed.

Yes, this was the locomotive used in HTWWW, lettered for the Verdi and Rio Grande RR, with a superstructure (of sorts) built around the vanderbuilt tank.

#7 is also starring then the season finale of Revolution, on NBC. I believe that it is supposed to be a two part episode and that #7 (before being painted up properly) is starring in the first part.

Watch for it!

Can anyone tell me what the story behind the copper smoke box and I also see the fire box has copper on it to, what the story behind that?

Magma Arizona Railroad was/is a wholly owed subsidiary of the Magma Copper Company. While set up as a common carrier it existed almost entirely to serve the Magma Copper Company and it's smelter in Superior, Arizona. In later years a perlite loading operation was located just west of Superior, but I believe that was the only other shipper on the line. Being deep in Arizona's "Copper Belt" and being pretty proud of it's little railroad, the MARR decided it would be a unique feature to paint the smoke box and fireboxes of their engines with a high-temp copper coating. I read somewhere where they even experimented once with a copper colored engine with a black smokebox (I'd like to see that....) I tried several different formulas and methods including making traditional graphite and oil smokebox paint out of copper powder and oil. It was a yucky brown failure. Copper and linseed oil turned into salmon pink primer paint. Finally, as a last resort, I bought 10 rattle cans of Rustoleum ultra high-temp copper paint. It's close enough for me, a little bright, but it will darken in time.

I forgot to mention that the Magma mine was one of the last shaft copper mines in Arizona. It closed in around 1983 when the price of copper tanked. The smelter had closed in the early 1970's. Broken Hill Production (BHP) got the property eventually and finished the shutdown process. In recent years another company has purchased the Magma property with the intent of reopening the mine. The railroad remains intact and mothballed. There is still one locomotive (a BLW S-12, I believe) on the property. It is said the copper ore body is less than 20% developed and is perhaps the largest copper ore body on the planet. It's all very deep. The Magma mine is some 4000' below the surface.

Stunning work on this locomotive...

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

Wow. I've never seen a pix of Magma Arizona steam in color...this is what it must have looked like. Wow !

Ironically HTWWW was on TNT today!