Grand Canyon Railway No. 4960

No. 4960 is an O-1a class 2-8-2 “Mikado” built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in August 1923 for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, one of a large fleet of Mikados the CB&Q used for fast freight across its largely level Midwestern territory. The engine spent its working life hauling freight in Illinois before moving to the Beardstown Division for coal service, and it made its final revenue run in 1958.

Rather than being scrapped, No. 4960 was chosen for the CB&Q’s “Steam Choo-Choo” school-train program, giving thousands of students a firsthand look at steam power through the early 1960s. When the railroad ended its excursion program in 1966, the locomotive passed through museum ownership, including a stint with the Circus World Museum and the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in Wisconsin, and a lease to the Bristol & North Western Railroad in Virginia.

The newly reborn Grand Canyon Railway purchased No. 4960 in 1989 and undertook one of the most extensive locomotive rebuilds of the era, a 30-month, roughly $1.6 million project completed in 1996 that converted the engine from coal to oil firing. In 2009 it was converted again, this time to burn recycled waste vegetable oil, making it one of the few operating steam locomotives in the country running on biofuel.

No. 4960 has served as the backbone of Grand Canyon Railway’s steam fleet ever since, regularly powering the 65-mile excursion between Williams, Arizona, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and is the only surviving ex-CB&Q steam locomotive still in operation anywhere.