Editor’s note: This feature by blogger John Purvis was posted Sunday, December 12, 2017. Click here to read Purvis’s posts: https://offthebeatenpathinillinois.blogspot.com/. The photos were taken by Purvis.
Outside a small town in North Central Illinois sits a lonely survivor of an earlier age of Illinois railroading history. She was born in Schenectady, NY, in 1924 at the American Locomotive company, on order for the Grand Trunk and Western Railroad. She was built as an 0-8-0, meaning she had zero wheels under the pilot, eight wheels under the main body, and zero wheels under the cab. She came out of the factory as a class P-5b switching engine and was designated #8305.
She worked hard for the next 30 years or so, pulling cars from one part of a rail yard to another to be hooked up to larger, more powerful locomotives, that would then carry cargo all over the Nation. By the 1950’s, however, the Age of Steam was drawing to a close. Diesel locomotives, more powerful and cheaper to operate, were making huge inroads onto the railroading scene. So it was, that in 1960 #8305 and 15 of her sisters were sold to Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling, IL, to be scrapped.
Here is where Fate took a turn. The man who owned Northwestern Steel & Wire loved the old steam trains. In his large industrial complex he already had a small fleet of ex-Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 0-6-0 switching engines, which were worn out and near the end of their useful life. So, he scrapped his engines and kept the newly-acquired 0-8-0’s as replacements. He restoring them and put them back to work at the same job they had been doing their entire lives.
For another 25 years, while other locomotives were being scrapped or gutted, #8305, now shortened to just #05, and her sisters chugged happily away, moving cars and rolling stock around the freight yard. All good things must come to an end, however, and in the early 1980’s she and her 11 surviving sisters were retired from service for the final time. Over the years some were donated to museums or City parks. One was restored and is at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL.
In the end, only #05 remains on that neglected siding. But if you close your eyes, you can almost hear the hissing of the steam and the mournful sound of her whistle blowing.