The Mid-Continent Railway Museum announced that Chicago & North Western 1385 — the R-1 Class 4-6-0 that last ran in the 1990s — will be returning home in May after an extensive restoration. 

The locomotive will be loaded onto a flatbed truck on May 5 at SPEC Machine, where much of the restoration work has occurred, and then moved to a siding along the Wisconsin & Southern. There it will be loaded onto a flatcar for the final move to the museum. The locomotive will be unloaded on May 9th. The move itself will be livestreamed by the museum and the public is invited to come to the museum on May 9 to witness the unloading. 

Locomotive 1385 was built in March 1907 by the American Locomotive Company as one of 325 R-1 class 4-6-0s owned by the C&NW. The R-1s were used in fast freight service and secondary passenger service. The ten-wheelers were the largest single class of steam locomotives the C&NW ever owned. Locomotive 1385 was retired in 1956 and then purchased by Mid-Continent members in 1961 for $2,600. The locomotive ran at Mid-Continent and across the Midwest (including a stint leading the Circus World Museum train) until it was taken out of service in 1998. 

Project Manager Micheal Wahl said a number of issues were discovered with the locomotive in the years after it was taken out of service, and at times, the restoration was put on the back burner. In 2011, however, a $250,000 challenge grant from the Wagner Foundation kicked the restoration back into high gear. In the years since, a new boiler has been built for it, and the locomotive’s original tender has been rebuilt.

The move is expected to cost $80,000. Donations can be made either online or be mailed to P.O. Box 358, E8948 Museum Road, North Freedom, WI 53951 (Please write “Bring the 1385 Home Fund” in the memo line). —Justin Franz