Arizona museum adds Alco NEWSWIRE

WILLIAMS, Ariz. — Although the Arizona State Railroad Museum in Williams has yet to break ground on its museum building, the foundation behind it is continuing to accumulate rolling stock relevant to the state’s rail history. This week, the museum took delivery of its latest acquisition, Magma Arizona
RS3 No. 3, which arrived on its own wheels late Wednesday or early Thursday on the tail of a BNSF Railway local en route from Winslow to Drake, Ariz.

Magma Copper Co. ordered three diesel locomotives from American Locomotive Co. in fall 1954 for the San Manuel Copper Corporation. Nos. 1, 2 and 3 arrived in spring 1955. The 29.4-mile San Manuel Arizona Railroad and its 6.5-mile long, adjacent Industrial Railroad (San Manuel smelter to Mammoth shaft) began operations on Feb. 2, 1955.

Even official rosters are in some slight confusion about exactly which RS3 ended up as which locomotive, and the builder’s plates were removed long ago; ASRM officials hope to find evidence of a builder’s number or frame number on the loco later this year. No. 3 was built in February or March 1955 with sisters No. 1 and No. 2. The serial number for No. 3 is either 81288 or 81289. No. 3 served the San Manuel Arizona Railroad for nearly 45 years, from 1955 to 1999.

Although the locomotive was delivered to San Manuel Arizona for use on
the newly opened smelter and mine railroads. It was originally stenciled
“SMC Corp” for San Manuel Copper Corp., and applied to a light orange finish. Over the next four decades it would feature at least four unique liveries: SMC Corp orange, MCC orange, Magma yellow-light mint green, and finally Magma orange-red/black stripe, the scheme it retains in 2019.

The Magma Arizona Railroad is notable as one of the last non-tourist-hauling railroads in North America to dieselize, not retiring the last of its steamers until 1968, and then being among the last users of large Baldwin diesel road switchers.

Australian mining conglomerate Broken Hill Proprietary Co. purchased Magma Copper Co. and its lines in 1996, and suspended rail operations on the former MA line a year later. No. 3 was eventually sold by Magma parent company BHP-Billiton to the Blacklands Railroad, a 65-mile short line in Sulphur Springs, Texas in 1999. No. 3 was purchased by Jim Terrell in 2004, who in turn donated the locomotive to Oklahoma Railroad Museum in 2005.

The Oklahoma Railroad Museum sold No. 3 to the Arizona State Railroad Museum Foundation in the fall of 2018, to represent the role of copper mining railroads in the state’s rail history. The museum foundation took delivery of another Alco, former Santa Fe S4 switcher, No. 1528, in October 2018. The museum’s rolling stock collection, stored on tracks near the shops of the Grand Canyon Railway and at other locations, includes Southern Pacific NW2 No. 1317, built 1941; Black Mesa & Lake Powell E60C electric locomotive No. 6001; a Shay locomotive; a Phoenix Valley Metro light rail prototype car; a narrow-gauge Porter fireless 0-4-0; and several standard-gauge and narrow-gauge freight cars.