TOWN OF SPRINGFIELD, Wis. — When the 1385 steam locomotive arrived in Springfield, the historic engine that at one time pulled the Circus Train was in pieces. After more than 11 years, the $3 million restoration effort was mostly complete at Spec Machine a few miles north of Middleton, Wisconsin. The locomotive then began its journey back to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in central Sauk County, Wisconsin. But the trip is anything but direct or simple.
The 185,000 pound engine was rolled out of her custom-built shed at about 6 a.m. July 7, hoisted by two massive cranes. It was gently lowered onto a $1 million, 12-axle, 96-wheel trailer where it was hauled by Reynolds Transfer & Storage to a Wisconsin & Southern Railroad spur at the Middleton Co-op. That’s where it was lifted from the trailer by the same set of cranes and just before 1 p.m. lowered not onto the track but onto a flatbed rail car.
The engine still has a few pieces missing and needs to gradually have its bearings tested, which is why it will be hauled instead of driven later this week to North Freedom, Wisconsin. A ceremony celebrating the locomotive’s arrival to the museum is scheduled for 4 p.m. July 12. The hope is for the locomotive, which will be lifted to the museum’s tracks July 14, to begin pulling passenger cars on the museum’s 4 miles of track by next summer.
“Everything went fairly well,” Andy Spinelli, Mid-Continent’s president, said moments after the locomotive was lowered onto the rail car in Middleton by two cranes from Ideal Crane. “They don’t do this type of work every day in terms of a locomotive but they do this type of work. They handled this thing very gingerly and it went about as smooth as we thought. But we still have a little more road to get her back to the museum.”…