By Railfan & Railroad Staff
A massive 2-10-4 locomotive that once ran on the Bessemer & Lake Erie has arrived at its new home, the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Ohio.
On Wednesday, the group announced that the locomotive had arrived on two flatcars from McKees Rocks, Pa., where the steam locomotive has been stored for decades. The group plans to eventually restore it for display.
Locomotive 643 was built by Baldwin in 1944, but it only ran in regular service for about eight years. Thankfully, the locomotive was preserved by B&LE in the roundhouse in Greenville, Pa. In the 1980s, it was sold to a private individual who kicked off an effort to restore it to operation. While a lot of work was completed by the late 1990s, the locomotive was never run and the owner kept it in storage for decades. In 2019, Age of Steam purchased it in tribute to its founder, Jerry Joe Jacobson, who had long dreamed of acquiring the locomotive he had dubbed “The King.”
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