Grand Canyon Railway No. 29

No. 29 is an SC-3 class 2-8-0 “Consolidation” built by the American Locomotive Company’s Pittsburgh Works in May 1906 for the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad (LS&I) in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where it was originally numbered 14. Designed to haul loaded and empty hopper cars up steep grades to the Marquette Range iron mines, the engine was rebuilt in 1925 with a wider firebox, thermic syphons, and a feedwater heater, and in 1934 it received a tender booster that substantially increased its pulling power, an upgrade unique to this locomotive on the LS&I roster. It was renumbered 29 in 1924 and worked ore trains until the LS&I retired it in 1956.

After decades of storage and private ownership, No. 29 was purchased by the newly reorganized Grand Canyon Railway and returned to service in April 1990, making its first run between Williams and the South Rim that same year. It operated through 1995, then again from 2004 to 2008 following an overhaul, before spending several years on static display, first at the Williams depot and later in front of the historic Grand Canyon Depot at the South Rim.

In 2016, timed to the National Park Service centennial, Grand Canyon Railway returned No. 29 to active service after converting it to burn waste vegetable oil. The restoration earned the railway the Arizona Office of Tourism’s Governor’s Tourism Award for Outstanding Culture and Historical Preservation in 2017. No. 29 remains part of the railway’s small operating steam roster, one of very few former iron-ore haulers still working excursion trains anywhere in the country.