By M.T.Burkhart

BOYERTOWN, Pa. – Over the weekend, Colebrookdale Railroad announced that not one, but two steam locomotives will be coming to the former Reading branch in Pennsylvania’s Berks and Montgomery counties. In January, word came that Colebrookdale planned to acquire Grand Trunk Western 4-6-2 5030 that has been on display in a park in Jackson, Mich. Then on Saturday evening, the railroad said it had also acquired a second steam locomotive, former Lake Superior & Ishpeming 2-8-0 18, an Alco built in 1910. The railroad did not specify a timeline for the locomotives to come to Pennsylvania or when the pair would return to operation.

Locomotive 18 is perhaps best known for its time on the Grand Canyon Railway, where it ran from 1989 to 2003. It then bounced around to the Mount Hood tourist operation in Oregon, then to the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad in Colorado. With the bankruptcy of Iowa Pacific, Rio Grande Scenic’s parent company, the locomotive was purchased by a foundation with the intent to run it at Boyertown. It was last under steam in 2013.

Grand Trunk 5030, a “Pacific type,” was built by Baldwin in 1912 and has been in the Michigan park since the late 1950s. The city council voted over the winter to sell the locomotive for $50,000 to Colebrookdale, according to local media reports.

Colebrookdale’s trips are currently pulled by diesels, including a former Conrail GP10 and an ex-Southern high-hood GP38-2. The railroad and volunteers have been working for the past few years to construct stations at both ends of the line as well as restore numerous passenger cars to service.

For more information on the railroad’s recently-created steam program, visit colebrookdalerailroad.com/steam.