Steam & Excursion > Not All Steam Locomotive Restorations Turn Out As Intended!

The preservation story behind most steam locomotives is usually quite straight forward.  In most cases once a railroad quit using a locomotive and replaced it with a diesel they either scrapped it or, on occasion, donated it to a town along it's right-of-way for display.  However, the locomotive we see here, followed quite a different path to preservation.

In 1957, the SP&S railroad (jointly owned by the GN and The NP) had promised to donate a steam locomotive to Klickitat County, Washington for display at at the entrance to the Maryhill Museum (named for James Hill's wife, Marry Hill).  The problem they had was from the fact that the SP&S had already donated their last steam locomotives that they had (#539 and #700) in and they had sold the remaining 900-series articulateds for scrap.  What to do?

A call was soon made back to the parent GN to see if they had any steam locomotives available that could be used for the display.  That is when they located GN #2507, an 1923-Baldwin built P-2 Class 4-8-2 in Minnesota.  Even though #2507 had never operated on the SP&S in it's entire life, it was decided to paint her up as SP&S #2507 and use her as the promised display locomotive at Maryhill Park.

Fast forward to 1992 and a group from Seattle formed the Northwest Railway & Locomotive Preservation Association with the plans to restore #2507 to operation.  They repainted #2507 back to her original GN colors and on February 13, 1994, she was loaded on a barge on the Columbia River as we see here and sent to Pasco, Washington where she was to be restored.  Over the years the first group gave up on the restoration and even a second group gave it a try, but failed.  She sat alone in Pasco for nearly a decade.

Finally, in 2003, Klickitat County decide to bring #2507 back home.  They obtained a place in the small railroad town of Wishram, Washington to build a display tack and cover for the engine.  #2507 was towed on the rails slowly to Wishram in July 2003.  Due to an error in the measurements of #2507 the roof erected over #2507 was far shorter than designed and today she fits just barely under this roof and is near impossible to photograph as a result.

Needless to say, the path to preservation and final display for #2507 was anything but the typical path for most other display locomotives.  But, #2507 is preserved and that, after ail is what really counts. 





Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/19 04:28 by LoggerHogger.

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Why was the air compressor on top of the tender? If they were just transporting it there appears to be plenty of room on the barge deck for it. 

The air compressor was there to provide air for the bakes on the engine when bing moved on and off the barge and to keep the brakes set while on the barge.

Martin

A GN engine with a radial stayed firebox.

.LD

That would be an excellent engine to restore.  They were handsome devils.

Nice to see that somebody REALLY wanted it and did something about it.

Yes it was headed the way of other RR items stored at Big Pasco Industrial Park have not been by for several years but last time by looked more like a scrap metal dealer lot than anything eles.  An item of intrest there is the large crane boomed up that the Chinese were supposed to buy but backed out of the deal.  Think the stick on it is well over 300ft.

I had a "GN 2507- She's Gonna Run In '91" t shirt when i was a kid. It's really too bad not only that, but the effort to start a tourist operation on the Goldendale branch never came to be. THAT would have been a great ride.

Posted from Android

This is how she is displayed now. 

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nycman Wrote:
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> This is how she is displayed now. 

Ouch - it's practically in a crate.

Thanks for the photo(s)!  Did not know about this locomotive, or
did and forgot.

/Mitch

This is one case of should've left it alone. It was much more enjoyable in the park at Maryhill.

Yah...That's another one that I donated a tidy sum of $$$ to help with preservation and chalked it up later as a big mistake! That makes about 6 or 7 of  'em that I should have listened to the old saying..."A fool and his money are soon parted!" No more from me on that!

trainsfireengine Wrote:

> Why was the air compressor on top of the tender?

Indeed!  Everyone knows on a GN steamer you're supposed to hang the air compressor off the smokebox front!