Workers begin relocating Engine No. 1023

Workers began the process of relocating the steam locomotive engine in Schlanger Park to its new home at the Heart of the Heartlands railroad museum in Carona this week. The engine should be ready for transport sometime next week.

The engine has been located in Schlanger Park since 1955, when the Kansas City Southern railroad sold it to the City of Pittsburg. But the locomotive has slowly been rusting away, and city officials said there was no money to maintain it — nothing has been done to it since 1995. So Pittsburg City Commissioners voted unanimously in December to let Heart of the Heartlands take it over.

Moving the beast won’t be an easy task, said Darrin Tilton, of Tilton and Sons House Moving company, which is handling the transfer. It is a “tender” locomotive, which means the engine is coupled with a car that holds both fuel — either oil or coal — and water for steam. The fuel car, which by itself weighs about 25 tons, was moved to Carona in February.

Tilton said the largest house he and his father and brothers has moved weighed around 160,000 pounds, or about 72 tons. The engine checks in at a whopping 120 tons.

“This is the heaviest thing we’ve ever moved,” Tilton said.

What they will do, essentially, is construct a steel frame beneath the car that will be connected six axles, essentially forming a giant trailer with trucks that pivot as the trailer rounds corners. The beams they will use to lift that are 80 feet long, 36 inches tall and weigh 300 pounds per foot.
“It’s going to look like a big snake when it goes around a corner,” Tilton said.

A long history
Engine No. 1023 is rich in locomotive history and has roots that extend well beyond the Pittsburg area. The story of the engine — one of just 2,000 steam locomotives remaining in the United States — begins back East more than a century ago.

According to historians from the Kansas City Southern Railroad, which operated the engine, No. 1023 was built as locomotive No. 488 at the Pittsburgh, Pa., Locomotive Works in July 1906.

Later, in 1925, while the engine was still relatively new and strong, it underwent a major overhaul at its new home in the KCS railyards in Pittsburg, Kan., where it was retrofitted to burn oil and redesignated No. 1023. The engine originally operated on a 2-8-0 wheel configuration — meaning it had one set of lead truck wheels, or bogies, which help guide the engine through curves, as well as eight main drive wheels — was put to work as a switch engine and continued to operate until the 1950s, when it was gradually phased out of service and replaced by diesel engines.

Frank Battega, a retired city of Pittsburg employee, said he remembers the engine well. According to Battega, No. 1023 operated as a long haul engine out of Kansas City before it was replaced by bigger steam locomotives and eventually diesel engines. It was then sent to Pittsburg, where it got its new number and was put to work moving freight cars from area factories through the then vast railyards. It also made runs to the yards in Neosho, Mo., and Watts, Okla., to pick up additional freight and grain cars.

“It would get the cars ready for transport,” Battega said. “It would take them from different factories and line them up to go where they needed to go.”

In 1955, when No. 1023 was finally retired, it was sold to the city of Pittsburg for $1. Kansas City Southern built a special spur track from its main line through town to the engine’s current resting spot, where it has been perched on a bed of steel tracks ever since.

At the time, the engine was intended to be but one part of a broader railroad museum that would house engines and other historical pieces from the railroads that serviced the area: Santa Fe, Frisco, Missouri Pacific and the J&P. But plans for the park stalled, though KCS officials said they are not certain of the reason why, and it was never completed.

Displaying a behemoth
Preparing a locomotive for display is not easy, according to representatives at the Illinois Railroad Museum, which actively restores steam and diesel engines and rail cars. Before an engine can be put to rest, there are several major preservative steps that must be completed.

Steam engines have massive water tanks that must be sealed to prevent water from leaking in. Any other possible entry ways for water, such as the smoke stack and smoke box — the large chamber at the front of the boiler and below the stack that collects hot gasses that have passed from the firebox and through the boiler tubes— must be swept and hosed down. The stack itself must be sealed.

Additionally, any components of the engine that might absorb water, such as the sand dome — which holds sand that can be dumped onto the tracks for improving traction — must be emptied and sealed. The cab requires extensive cleaning, too, Ash continued, because coal dust is very acidic and can quickly rust the steel.

And the work doesn’t stop there. In 1995, the city contracted to have any remaining asbestos — the main component of the “lagging,” or insulating shield between the boiler and the boiler jacket — removed from the engine.

“It just acts like a sponge,” said IRM Treasurer Fred Ash. “It’s one of the main expenses.” (Pittsburg paid more than $10,000 to have the asbestos removed by a contractor)

Ash said it’s also an environmental concern, as the asbestos lining will eventually begin to leak from the jacket.

“You’ve got this white stuff dripping out the bottom and there are kids playing on those things,” Ash said.

There’s also the question of paint. Household or exterior paint doesn’t last long enough when exposed to the weather, Ash said. So a special type of electrically fused powder coating or resin-based paint has to be applied, which is another pricey undertaking.

“You want to use some sort of epoxy-based spray-on,” Ash said. “It has to be done by professional because it has resin that can turn your lungs into plastic.”

Typically, Ash said, prepping an engine can cost between $10,000 and $150,000, depending on its condition.