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Louisiana Steam Train Association Names New COO

Rock Island Rail owner Robert J. Riley was recently named the new Chief Operating Officer of the Louisiana Steam Train Association, operator of Southern Pacific 2-8-2 745. Photo Courtesy of Robert J. Riley.

Louisiana Steam Train Association Names New COO

By Eric Berger

NEW ORLEANS — The man behind Mississippi’s Rock Island Rail is now leading the effort to reactivate Southern Pacific 2-8-2 745. The Louisiana Steam Train Association announced February 1, that it has named Rock Island CEO Robert J. Riley as its Chief Operating Officer and Chief Mechanical Officer, with the return of SP 745 to operation among his top priorities. Also joining the effort as the assistant chief operating officer is Jacob Styron.

Riley said he is looking forward not only to working on the 2-8-2, but on finding a new permanent home where it and other LASTA equipment can operate. The engine developed a legion of fans following the initial restoration to operation by LASTA two decades ago, and Riley is optimistic they will see her in action again in roughly two years.

“We’ve got a list of things to work on, including the boiler, the air compressor, the addition of some modern safety appliances, inspection and freshening of the running gear, new lagging and jacketing. The most important thing is to make sure each one of them is done right,” Riley said. “It’s hard to say how long it will take with any precision on a project like this, because sometimes, you don’t know everything you’re going to run into until you run into it.”

The Mikado was built in 1921 for SP subsidiary Texas & New Orleans, one of a handful fabricated at Algiers Shops directly across the Mississippi from New Orleans.  Southern Pacific acquired copious quantities of spare parts from Baldwin, ostensibly to service its large fleet of Baldwin-built Mk-5 class Mikados. Enough of those parts made their way to Algiers and another shop in Houston that boilermakers there were able to produce more than a dozen Mk-5s of their own, of which SP 745 is the sole survivor.

Following retirement in 1956, SP 745 was donated to the City of New Orleans and put on display in Audubon Park. Beloved for a time, nearly three decades of neglect took its inevitable toll on the appearance of the locomotive, leading to it removal from the park in 1984. Subsequent years saw unsuccessful restoration efforts by Louisiana State Railroad Museum and the Old Kenner Railroad Association.

The tide turned for 745 when LASTA took over in 1997, raising more than $1 million dollars for the mechanical restoration that followed. Her return to service in 2004 heralded a renaissance for local steam fans over the next decade, who would see her pull excursion across the region and as far as Kansas City on the Kansas City Southern, as well as on local holiday trains. She was eventually taken out of service for work on the boiler and air compressor.

Riley has embraced his new role with gusto, quickly developing plans for a new era of LASTA operations.

“All of the crew members will go through a rigorous training program and be qualified and certified in all aspects of their assignments. We are putting together a comprehensive fireman training program, using a combination of things from the steam era from the Reading, Pennsy and the Santa Fe,” he said. “We will integrate all of the modern requirements into that training program. The goal is to turn out individuals that excel and stand out in their performance.”

Cognizant of the engine’s heritage, Riley has introduced new crew uniforms with lettering that reflects that heritage in period-correct fonts. He was already wearing one while working on the engine with Styron last week.

In addition to operating LASTA equipment on a home base railroad, Riley hopes 745 gets the chance to travel so more people can enjoy seeing her in operation. “We plan to run the engine anywhere it is welcome.”

Though Rock Island is strictly a freight railroad, Riley has long hoped to be able to provide excursion opportunities and has been acquiring equipment toward that end, including the

five-bedroom Pullman buffet-lounge observation car Royal Street, built in 1950 for the Louisville & Nashville, which is Amtrak-certified and now available for charter. Rock Island operations include the Gulf & Ship Island shortline in Gulfport and the 85-mile Mississippi Delta, a former Illinois Central line through the Delta region with a yard in Clarksdale and a CN connection in Swan Lake.

That said, Riley remained non-committal when asked if 745 might ever ply the 81-mile length of the Mississippi Delta line now operated by Rock Island.

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” he said.

This article was posted on: February 20, 2023