An Alco-built 2-8-0 that last operated in 2019 is expected to return to service on the Grand Canyon Railway in 2026. 

In early December, Grand Canyon announced that locomotive 29 had passed a Federal Railroad Administration hydrostatic test and inspection. With no boiler leaks found during the test, shop crews have been able to start reassembling the locomotive, and if everything proceeds as planned, it will be in service in the new year. 

Locomotive 29 was built by Alco in Pittsburg, Pa., in 1906, for Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad, an ore-hauling railroad in Michigan. After the locomotive was retired in the early 1960s, it was purchased along with several other LS&I steam engines by a new tourist railroad, the Marquette & Huron Mountain. Eventually, the engine was sold to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum. In 1989, it was sold to the Grand Canyon, along with three other ex-LS&I 2-8-0s, Nos. 18, 19, and 20. Locomotive 29 was put back into service in 1990 and became a mainstay of the railroad into the 21st century. It was later joined by former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 2-8-2 4960. 

—Justin Franz