Grand Canyon Railway No. 29

Design and Construction

No. 29 is an SC-3 class 2-8-0 “Consolidation” built by the American Locomotive Company’s Pittsburgh Works in May 1906, serial number 39637, for the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where it was originally numbered 14. The LS&I had been built in the 1890s for a single purpose: hauling iron ore from the mines around Ishpeming and Negaunee, on a range that has been worked continuously since 1847, down to the Lake Superior docks at Marquette. No. 29 was built to haul loaded and empty hopper cars up the steep grades between those mines and the ore docks, freight work that demanded steady pulling power more than speed, and by 1904 the railroad it served was already moving well over a million tons of ore a year behind a roster of just fourteen locomotives.

Rebuilds and Revenue Service (1906–1956)

The engine underwent a major rebuild in 1925 that gave it a wider firebox, thermic syphons, a feedwater heater, and larger superheated cylinders, changes substantial enough that the railroad reclassified it as an SC-3, making it the sole example of that class on the LS&I roster. It was renumbered 29 in 1924. In 1934 it received a booster mounted on its trailing truck that pushed its tractive effort from roughly 43,300 pounds up to nearly 59,800 pounds, an upgrade unique to this locomotive among the LS&I’s fleet. No. 29 worked Upper Peninsula ore trains until the railroad retired it in 1956.

Storage and Private Ownership (1956–1989)

After retirement, No. 29 was stored in Marquette before the Marquette and Huron Mountain Railroad purchased it in 1963. It changed hands again at auction on January 14, 1985, going to a private buyer in Iowa, before Grand Canyon Railway purchased it in July 1989 as the newly reorganized tourist line looked to build out its steam roster.

First Excursion Era and Overhauls (1990–2008)

No. 29 was restored and returned to service on April 26, 1990, making its first runs between Williams, Arizona and the South Rim that year, initially strong enough to pull six or seven passenger cars unassisted. It was pulled from service in 1995 for a mandatory boiler inspection that turned into a major rebuild, roughly 26,000 labor hours and more than $1 million of work, before returning to the rails in 2004. A Lempor exhaust system fitted in 2005 improved the locomotive’s draft and efficiency, but rising fuel costs and environmental concerns led Grand Canyon Railway to pull No. 29 from regular operations again in September 2008, and it spent the following years on static display, first at the Williams depot and later in front of the historic Grand Canyon Depot at the South Rim.

Second Restoration and Recent Operations (2016–Present)

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, addressing the fuel-cost and environmental concerns that had sidelined it eight years earlier. The locomotive ran in that role through October 2019, including a run of photo-charter trips for railfans, before being placed back on display pending its next federally mandated 1,472-day boiler inspection, an overhaul that began in late 2023.

Recognition

The 2016 restoration earned Grand Canyon Railway the Arizona Office of Tourism’s Governor’s Tourism Award for Outstanding Culture and Historical Preservation, presented in July 2017. No. 29 remains part of the railway’s small operating steam roster and is one of very few former iron-ore haulers from the Upper Peninsula’s mining railroads still working excursion trains anywhere in the country, a long way in both distance and purpose from the hopper trains it once pushed up the Marquette Range.