Grand Trunk Western - St. Paul, MN - Locomotives on Waymarking.com

In 1923 the Grand Trunk Western Railroad had a number of P-5 class 0-8-0 switchers built for them. They served the GTW until the railroad dieselized in the 1950's. The railroad set a number of engines aside for preservation, however no 0-8-0's were among them. The 0-8-0's were all sold for scrap.

Sixteen of the switch engines were sold to the Northwestern Steel and Wire scrapyard in Sterling, Illinois in 1960. Instead of scraping these engines the scrapyard decided to scrap their own engines, and put the 0-8-0's to work.

The engines were renumbered and some were converted from coal to oil firing. Apart from that, little was changed during their second career at NS&W. These sixteen switch engines worked for a couple more decades until the early 1980's.

When NS&W steam operations finished, twelve of the original sixteen 0-8-0's were still on the roster. The other four had been used for spare parts and scrapped.

The remaining 0-8-0's were given to the Illinois Railway Museum. The P-5 0-8-0 class which never had preservation plans now was of the best-represented locomotive type in preservation. But what was the IRM to do with twelve similar switch engines? One engine, no. 80, was cosmetically restored in her original guise as GTW 8380, and placed on display at the museum's Union, Illinois site. Homes were found for some of the others. No. 27 went to St. Paul, Minnesota, for display outside Bandana Square. Five of the engines were traded to a Chicago scrapyard in exchange for CB&Q 2-8-2 no. 4963. Two of the engines still remain rusting in a field in Galt Illinois waiting for a home.

For a more complete telling of this story check out this web site.

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