A new parking lot next to the Old Santa Fe Depot in Amarillo, Texas, means the former Santa Fe "Madame Queen" 2-10-4 locomotive soon will find a new parking space for the first time in almost 50 years.

Members of a train history preservation group, the Railroad Artifact Preservation Society Inc., have been working the past couple of weekends to lube up the sleeping giant, preparing her for the big move. Their plan is to relocate the locomotive along four downtown blocks sometime in the spring to a new resting place north of the Amarillo Civic Center.

"It's just going to be a historic event," said Sam Teague, RAPS president. "It's never been done before (here), and it's probably never going to be done again."

Messer Construction Co. Inc. of Hereford will relocate the locomotive. The company is a railroad contractor and has experience in lifting trains derailed by accidents.

It'll take track sections and special cranes called side booms to move the hulking engine -- its incredible weight being the main resistance. Engine and tender combine to 877,600 pounds, although the two parts will be separated for the trip.

The movers will pour sand onto the streets at the intersections so that the tracks can slide across the surface to rotate the engine.

The city will supervise the move to control crowds, block off traffic and regard utility lines beneath the streets. The project should take from one to three days to complete, Teague said.

The RAPS group plans to raise enough money to build a structure around the engine at its new home at Southeast Second Avenue and Lincoln Street. The structure will protect it from the elements and serve as a museum in which children and other visitors can get an up-close look and even climb aboard it for tours.

The Madame Queen is a one-of-a-kind, an experimental prototype for the 5000 series and two other classes of locomotives. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway gave the engine to the city after it was retired, and it has been in front of the depot since April 17, 1957.

"It's on a city easement, and it can be there from now until doomsday if the city wanted," said Ron Marlow, president of the Texas Panhandle Railroad Historical Society, charged with the engine's upkeep.

But the wheels are turning -- or soon will, at least -- and the short trip down the street looms as a momentous occasion for the engine. Like a tin man come to life, its metal joints may shriek something fierce when it starts to move, if the cranes' engines don't drown out the sound.

And RAPS members will spend a couple more Saturdays greasing its parts.

"We'll lubricate everything that's going to move when the engine moves -- whatever revolves or reciprocates or whatever action it does," Teague said.

"Whether you like trains or not, it's going to be something to see."