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MUSEUM ROLLING STOCK
25 TON LOCOMOTIVE
The "Critter" is
running!
The 25 ton locomotive was built by GE in 1943 for
the US Navy. It its later years, it served as a switch engine at the
Lafarge Scrap Yard in Carrollton, MI, a few miles north of where the
museum is today. The locomotive was donated to the museum and is
currently undergoing a restoration. Bushey Radiator in Saginaw and
General Machine in Buena Vista built a radiator and the parts needed to
install it.
The "Critter," as we like to call it sat
dormant for over twenty years. Our wonderful restoration crew got it
back to running condition in 2009. The news
gets better. In May of 2010, they found the traction motor to be
working. The "Critter" is running-literally. It goes back and
forth down our storage track!
ALCO RS1 LOCOMOTIVE
On October 28, 2003, Consumers Energy donated the
retired Alco RS-1 locomotive from their Karn/Weadock Generating Complex
to the Museum. The Saginaw Railway Museum now stores the locomotive for
display, and is attempting to determine how to best restore it to
working condition.
Museum President James Trier noted , "The old Alco locomotive from Karn/Weadock
is historically significant to railroad aficionados because it is one of
only five or six left in the United States. We're pleased that
Consumers Energy was willing to donate it to our group locally, to
preserve the history of significant railroad artifacts in the
Saginaw-Bay area."
The locomotive was built in 1951 in Schenectady, New York, and delivered
new to the Rutland Railroad in Vermont that year. Rutland used it until
1964, when they sold it to another Vermont railroad, the Green Mountain
Railroad. Michigan-based Consumers Power Company bought the Alco in
1967. It was operated at the Karn/Weadock Generating Complex until
2002.
Consumers' Karn/Weadock site General Manager Calvin H. Talley stated
upon donation, "We believe in being a good corporate citizen of the
communities in which we operate."
The Alco was used to move railcars carrying coal and fuel oil at the
complex, Consumers Energy's largest power plant complex.
SOCIETY CAR
The Society Car, aka the "Green Car" has been with us
since the beginning. This car was built for the C&O in 1931 and
served a number of purposes, finally as a work car for Maintenance of
Way crews until its "retirement" in about 1991, at which point
CSX Transportation donated it to the Museum.
THE CABOOSES
The Society currently owns two cabooses. One is a
Pere Marquette caboose that never had electricity. The caboose was built
in 1941 and served until 1983 or 1984. It was originally slated to meet
the fate of thousands of other cabooses like it across the country until
CSX heard about our love for old PM stuff and donated it in the early
1990s. The other caboose is a former C&O blue caboose that survived
until CSX phased out cabooses. This caboose was donated by CSX after its
retirement in the early 1990s.
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