Steam Trips Now Running in Youngstown

Northeast Ohio has a new operating steam locomotive and it’s ready to pull public excursions.

The Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum has finished restoring to operating condition its No. 58 narrow gauge 0-4-0T saddle tank engine built by the H.K. Porter Company for Jones & Laughlin Steel Company.

Originally designed as a 23-inch engine, the steamer now operates on a 24-inch gauge on the museum’s J&L Narrow Gauge Railroad.

No. 58 will be operating on select summer weekends, using more than 700 feet of track.

Passengers ride in an open air flatcar with bench seating and a roof.

Admission is $8 and includes unlimited rides. Children age 5 and under are admitted free.

Upcoming dates during which No. 58 will be operating are June 9, July 6 and 7, Aug. 3 and 4, Sept. 7 and 8, and Oct. 5.

Trains will be operating between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on all dates.

The museum is located at 2261 Hubbard Road in Youngstown.

For more information, visit the J&L pages at https://www.facebook.com/events/2352655365013134/

Photographs by Todd Dillon

Youngstown Group to Benefit from HO Model Sales

The Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation will benefit from a plan by Athearn Trains and two hobby shops to donate to the group part of the proceeds of the sale of an HO scale SDP45 locomotive.

The donations will be used to help the Youngstown group preserve an Erie Lackawanna SDP45 that it is acquiring from the Virginia Museum of Transportation. The ex-EL unit is now wearing a Conrail livery.

Athearn, the Maine Model Works of Yarmouth, Maine, and Hobby Express in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, will make a donation for every scale model of EL No. 3639 or Conrail No. 6670 that they sell.

The Youngstown group has raised more than $10,000 toward its $20,000 goal to purchase the locomotive.

It also has purchased new doors and windows for the locomotive, which it plans to move to the Marter Yard Railroad Museum operated by the Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association, in Youngstown.

EMD built No. 3639 in 1969 and it is one of two six-axle EL EMD units that have been preserved. The other is No. 3607 at the National Museum of Transportation near St. Louis.

North East, Pa., Museum Gets GE Switcher

The Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pennsylvania, has received a GE 80-ton switcher that was built in 1944 for the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad and also has an Ohio connection.

The locomotive was transported to the museum by flat car.

Once owned by a Lordstown steel company, the locomotive was later given to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.

The Youngstown museum traded it to the Pennsylvania museum.

It was the first diesel-electric locomotive owned by G&W and also served as an industrial switcher for the Kinzua Dam project on the Allegheny River near Warren, Pennsylvania.

Lake Shore Museum Receives GE Center Cab

The Lake Shore Railway Museum has received a General Electric 80-ton center cab locomotive that was the first owned by the Genesee & Wyoming Railroad in New York State.

The locomotive was previously in the collection of the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.

Built in 1944 in Erie, Pa., the locomotive was sold by G&W in 1962 to Cleveland-based construction contractor Hunkin-Conkey.

The locomotive was moved to Warren, Pa., and used in the construction of Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River.

It remained in Warren for a stillborn tourist railroad before being sold in 1982 to a Youngstown steel mill.

Eventually, the locomotive wound up being sold and moved to McDonald Steel, which donated it in 2008 to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation.

The Lake Shore museum, based in North East, Pa., has six other GE locomotives in its collection.

CVSR Wins Grant to Help Restore Rail Car

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad has received a grant of $7,500 from the Thomas E. Dailey Foundation that will be used to restore its observation car Saint Lucie Sound. Restoration of the car, which was built in 1946 for the Florida East Coast, is projected to cost $242,000.

Also receiving a grant from the foundation is the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation, which will receive $1,500 to restore Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. 0-4-0 No. 58, a 23-inch gauge steam locomotive built by the H. K. Porter Co. in 1937 for use at the Jones & Laughlin Pittsburgh Works.

The locomotive is unique because of its heavy design with a high pressure boiler for extremely high traction in order to haul the tonnage of ingots and molds.

The grant will assist with fabrication of the previously removed cab section back to its original design along with the saddle tank water tank.

In addition to restoring the locomotive, the project includes 300 feet of track so that when the locomotive is fired, its use in the historically important Youngstown steel industry can be demonstrated regularly to the community and visitors. The awards were among 11 grants totaling $40,300 that were announced by the Dailey Foundation on Feb. 7.

Since its creation in 2013, the Foundation has awarded grants totaling $345,300. Other rail grant recipients included: National Capital Trolley Museum – Silver Spring, Md.: $2,500 to help fund renovation of Capital Traction Co. 522, a streetcar built in 1898 for use in the nation’s capital.

Western New York Railway Historical Society – Orchard Park, N.Y.: $2,000 to help fund an upgrade to the security system at the Williamsville Depot.

Rufus Porter Museum Inc. – Bridgton, Maine: $1,800 to fund creation of a model of the Broadway Elevated Railroad based on Rufus Porter’s design and drawing, which was published in Scientific American.

Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad Inc. – Chama, N.M.: $5,000 to help fund restoration of Denver & Rio Grande Western Tourist Sleeper Car 0252/470.

Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc. – North Freedom, Wis.: $1,000 to help restore East Jordan & Southern passenger car No. 2, which was built in 1864.

Northern Pacific Railway Depot Museum – Wallace, Idaho: $2,500 to assist with replacement of the 1901 depot’s cedar roof.

Douglas County Museum Foundation – Roseburg, Ore.: $1,500 to help restore Oregon & California Railcar No. 3001.

Venice Historic Preservation League, Inc. – Venice, Fla.: $5,000, to help acquire, refurbish and display an existing circus train car to represent the living quarters of circus performers during the time that the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus spent the winter in Venice.