The award was announced at the Association of Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums annual meeting in Savannah, Ga., on Nov. 12.
The grant will sponsor the transferring of engineering documents of the carbody, nose, and cab contours to a scalable, digital, three-dimensional format so replacement parts can be fabricated quickly and accurately for Santa Fe No. 59L at Frisco, Texas.
The work will focus on the cab area, speeding the day when the famous Santa Fe silver, red, and yellow Warbonnet paint scheme can be reapplied to this historic locomotive.
The award was made from more than 50 applicants in this, the 17th year, for the Trains $10,000 grant.
“We had an avalanche of great applicants with strong projects, good plans, and organizations behind them ready and capable of making their goals a reality, and we wish we could fund them all,” says Trains Editor Jim Wrinn. “Our choice for the PA is a salute to one of the most popular passenger locomotives ever built, a tribute to Alco, and a nod to the emerging Museum of the American Railroad, which is developing its Frisco campus.”
“We are proud and honored to receive the 2016 Trains Preservation Award,” says Robert Willis, project manager. “Trains’ funding and endorsement of the Santa Fe Alco PA Project enables us to make significant progress towards reconstruction of the locomotive. While we are fortunate to be the stewards of this historic and iconic engine, we view this as a gift to its enthusiasts worldwide and look forward to seeing the PA grace the rails once again.”
Alco built Santa Fe No. 59L in 1948 at its plant in Schenectady, N.Y. Santa Fe sold the locomotive to Delaware & Hudson in 1967 as No. 16. The unit became property of the national railway system of Mexico in 1978, and it was wrecked and heavily damaged in 1981. The Smithsonian Institution repatriated the PA in 2000, and it was donated to the Museum of the American Railroad in 2010. Nearly 300 of the units were built in the late 1940s and early 1950s for use in the United States. Only four of these remain, one in Portland, Ore., in private ownership and painted Nickel Plate Road, and in two museums in Mexico
The award was made 70 years after Alco brought out the first PA, which, incidentally, was the builder’s 75,000th locomotive, and just happened to be made for the Santa Fe.
And the ALCO 251 even worked into the space age. That is what powers the units that moved the Saturn V to the pad and also the Space Shuttles. The 244 got a bad reputation partly because of the electrical controls they had on them. But locos like the ALCO RS-3 were some pulling son of a guns. And like the PAs, could be used in freight or passenger service without fear of motor problems.
The award should expediate the restoration project of former Santa Fe Alco PA1 No. 59L. Congratulations to #The_Museum_Of_The American_Railroad.
John Goodhand, you mean the Alco 251 engine, not 255. I was with Alco when the first 251-equipped locomotives started coming out of the final assembly building , and I do not recall any mention of a 255 engine.
Good news indeed, but the proper usage is past tense: “gussied-up.” Future tense would be something along the line of “will be gussied up.” The net result should be …..
GREAT. Congratulations! D&H #16 was the first PA I ever saw, dead behind Colonie shops, alas. But I look forward to seeing her as delivered in full War Bonnet colors in the not-so-distant future. She left Alco in October, 1948.
Great to know this!
Love this locomotive!
Great news!! First weekend newswire that I remember
Excellent choice! Well done.
Bravo! The PA was considered a dead end because they put in one big diesel engine in them and it did not work. What was almost a dead end was the 244 diesel. the 255 was much better, but by then the damage was done. I never knew an engineer who did not prefer a 255 to any thing that EMD sold. The Nickel Plate had 4 Baldwin road switchers re-engined – 2 by Alco with 255s and 2 by EMD. the Alcos still rode rough but pulled like crazy. The EMDs rode rough and couldn’t pull a setting hen off the nest.
Nice award, and the money will be put to good use. That thing was a horror when it was repatriated from Mexico.