The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Ohio has acquired Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 2-6-6-2 1308 from the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society in West Virginia. The locomotive is the 25th engine to join the Age of Steam fleet and the first articulated. 

Locomotive 1308 is one of ten built for the C&O in 1949, the last steam engines made by Baldwin Locomotive Works for domestic service. The final one in the group, C&O 1309, operates today at the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. C&O 1308 has been on display in Huntington for decades, and although the historical society maintained the locomotive’s cosmetic condition, the years outdoors were taking a toll on the engine. 

“The 1308 has been displayed unprotected outdoors in a Huntington city park since October 9, 1962,” said Nathan Vance, executive director of Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum. “While Collis P. Huntington members regularly repainted their steamer, paint protected only 1308’s exterior surfaces, and rusting of the locomotive’s boiler and all the other steel parts has continued unabated from the inside out for 63 years. The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum can end all of that.”

Age of Steam plans to cosmetically restore the locomotive for display. The museum was the brainchild of Ohio Central Railroad founder Jerry Joe Jacobson, who collected an impressive fleet of steam engines before his death in 2017. 

It is unclear when 1308 will be relocated to Ohio. 

—Justin Franz