Southern Railway No. 4501

Design and Construction

No. 4501 was built in October 1911 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, builder’s number 37085, at a cost of $23,182, as the first 2-8-2 “Mikado” type locomotive the Southern Railway ever ordered. The Mikado wheel arrangement, with its larger firebox supported by a trailing truck, let Southern haul heavier freight tonnage than its older 2-8-0 Consolidations could manage, and No. 4501 effectively opened a new chapter of Southern’s motive power roster.

Revenue Service (1911–1948)

No. 4501 was first assigned to Southern’s Bulls Gap, Tennessee division, hauling coal, lumber, and general freight, before rotating through other divisions across the Southern system over the following decades, including assignments on the Washington, Knoxville, Cincinnati-New Orleans-Texas Pacific, and St. Louis divisions. Crews nicknamed it “The Big Engine” for its hauling capacity compared to the older power still working alongside it. Southern retired No. 4501 from revenue freight service in July 1948 as newer, larger locomotives took over its assignments.

Sale to the Kentucky and Tennessee Railway (1948–1964)

Southern sold No. 4501 on October 7, 1948, to the short-line Kentucky and Tennessee Railway in Stearns, Kentucky, for $8,225, where it was renumbered K&T No. 12 and continued hauling coal for another sixteen years. When the K&T dieselized in 1964, the engine’s working life as an ordinary freight hauler came to an end.

Purchase by Paul Merriman and First Restoration (1964–1966)

Chattanooga railfan Paul Merriman purchased the locomotive for $5,000 of his own money, plus another $2,000 for spare parts, and brought it home to Tennessee, renumbering it back to 4501. Restoration work began at the Lucey Boiler Company in Chattanooga on June 6, 1964, with volunteers from what would become the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum stripping the engine down for a full overhaul: a new cab floor, a rebuilt ash pan, a replaced smokebox front, a straightened cab roof, reworked cylinder cocks, and a repacked reverse gear.

Southern Railway Steam Excursion Program (1966–1998)

No. 4501 returned to steam in August 1966 and became the flagship of Southern Railway’s celebrated mainline steam excursion program, running specials across the Southeast for more than three decades. At the request of Southern Railway president W. Graham Claytor Jr., the locomotive was painted in the railroad’s Sylvan green and gold passenger livery, a scheme Southern normally reserved for its Ps-4 class passenger locomotives and its diesels, applied to a freight Mikado as a deliberate point of pride. Paul Merriman donated the locomotive to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in 1975, formalizing the museum’s ownership of an engine its own founders had already restored and were already operating. No. 4501 ran its last trips of that long excursion era on September 19 and 20, 1998, when its boiler flue-time certificate expired.

Second Restoration and Return to Norfolk Southern Steam (2011–2015)

Between 2011 and 2014, TVRM completed a comprehensive overhaul of No. 4501, replacing a cracked backhead and firebox sheets, adding a Worthington SA feedwater heater and a mechanical stoker, upgrading the trailing-wheel bearings, installing an automatic lubricator, and raising the boiler’s operating pressure to 205 psi. The rebuilt locomotive returned to Norfolk Southern’s 21st Century Steam excursion program in June 2015, though that program itself wound down later that same year after Hurricane Joaquin forced the cancellation of its remaining scheduled runs.

Recent Operations and Recognition

Today No. 4501 is TVRM’s senior operating locomotive, based at the museum’s East Chattanooga shops and regularly powering excursions such as the Missionary Ridge Local and the Summerville Steam Special to Summerville, Georgia. In May 2026 the museum repainted the locomotive back into its original Sylvan green and gold scheme, restoring the look it carried during its most famous years pulling Southern Railway’s mainline excursions. No. 4501 is widely regarded as the oldest operating Mikado-type steam locomotive in North America and one of the longest continuously preserved mainline steam engines in the country, a distinction built on more than a century of nearly unbroken ownership by people determined to keep it running rather than let it become a static display.