By Justin Franz and Otto M. Vondrak
ELKHART, Ind. — The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society announced Wednesday that it had acquired New York Central L-3a “Mohawk” 3001 and planned to restore the 4-8-2 locomotive to operation for use on its popular Indiana Rail Experience excursions.
The 3001 is the largest surviving NYC steam locomotive and the only member of the L3a class to escape the scrapper’s torch. The locomotive was under the care of the City of Elkhart, Ind., and has been on display at the National New York Central Museum for decades.
FWRHS owns three other steam locomotives, most notably Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 765, which it has operated since the 1970s. For the last few years, it has managed the Indiana Rail Experience, an excursion operation on the Indiana Northeastern Railroad, which has trackage in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Much of that track is former NYC, meaning locomotive 3001 will be right at home. NYC 3001 will also join the fleet of seven Budd streamlined cars built in 1941 for the NYC “Empire State Express” and purchased from Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum in 2023.
While FWRHS made the announcement on Wednesday, the effort to acquire the locomotive dates back more than a year. The City of Elkhart approved the sale of 3001 in September 2023. Although the transaction was noted in publicly available documents, it was never widely shared. The deal includes locomotive 3001 and tender, plus an auxiliary tender. In return for the locomotive, the National New York Central Museum will receive a cash donation of $20,000; the City of Elkhart will receive help with creating a strategic plan for the future of the museum and its equipment; and the promise that when restored, FWRHS will do its best to bring 3001 back to Elkhart for a visit (although the deal notes that is entirely dependent on the engine being allowed to operate on Class I rails, specifically Norfolk Southern, which runs past the museum).
“We have been the stewards of the Mohawk for many years,” said Elkhart Mayor Rod Roberson in a press release. “Although we have had no shortage of pride and admiration for this historic machine, we lacked the expertise to be able to preserve it in the way it deserves. We are thrilled to be able to announce this partnership and a new life for the Mohawk.”
New York Central L-3a 3024, a sister locomotive to 3001 currently in Elkhart, Ind., is seen in service leading a train near Peekskill, N.Y. Photo by Donald W. Furler/Collection of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.
According to FWRHS, a mechanical evaluation of the locomotive has been performed by FMW Solutions with financial support from former Norfolk Southern CEO Wick Moorman. The group estimates that it will take $4.3 million to restore the locomotive to operation and FWRHS has issued a $100,000 challenge grant with the goal of raising $500,000 by May 3, 2025. Donations can be made online at AmericanLoco.org. FWRHS is also encouraging people to join its pledge list.
“Rather than manage an unknowable ebb and flow of contributions, we encourage backers to join our pledge list,” said FWRHS Executive Director Kelly Lynch. “We are planning pledge drives at the outset to meet our first critical fundraising milestones and to measure the feasibility of fundraising for such a massive project. The effort will not be able to move forward without broad and consistent donor support, which we believe we can forecast from the pledges. As much as this effort may be driven by emotion and history, it has to be driven by data and logic, too.”
The Mohawk was among the pinnacle of steam power on the Central, alongside its famous 4-6-4 Hudson and 4-8-4 Niagara. The first 4-8-2s were delivered to NYC by American Locomotive Company in 1916, part of an order for 129 class L-1 freight locomotives. The 300-unit L-2 class that followed between 1925 and 1930 was updated with longer fuel tenders, larger boilers, feedwater heaters, and booster engines. However, it was the L3a class Mohawks that were among the Central’s most famous steam locomotives of the modern era, built for both freight and passenger service. In 1940, American Locomotive Company built 25 dual-purpose 4-8-2s for the railroad. Designers borrowed heavily from the railroad’s most famous class of locomotive, the J-3 Hudson, when creating the new L-3a. Equipped with 69-inch drivers, and a modern design that concealed most outside piping and a sunken feedwater heater, this class became the face of NYC freight and passenger service until the end of steam. While most 4-8-2 locomotives were dubbed “Mountains,” the Central decided to name theirs after the scenic river its main line followed in upstate New York.
FWRHS Executive Director Kelly Lynch announces the plan to restore New York Central 3001 on Wednesday. —Photo by Otto M. Vondrak.
“The L-3a looks like a passenger engine,” Trains Editor David P. Morgan once wrote in one of his most famous articles titled “The Mohawk that refused to abdicate, and other tales” in 1955. “After all, from the drop-coupler pilot back to the third pair of disc drivers she smacks of Hudson design in a blueprint that resists straight lines and luxuriates in smooth contours and subtle, feminine curves. No wonder Central publicists threw the word ‘Mountain’ out of their dictionary. Aside from the fact that The Water Level Route never let you forget it, an L-3a is the last locomotive on earth anyone would think of as a mountain engine. She is grace and speed, an aristocrat of multiple-track main lines and water troughs that would look as out of place on Tennessee Pass as a K-4 in Miami.”
While the majority of steam operations on NYC lines east of Buffalo came to an end in 1953, steam sporadically continued being used across the system until May 1957, with NYC 3001 operating until retirement in February 1957. While one other NYC 4-8-2 survives (Class L-2d 2933 at the National Museum of Transportation near St. Louis), 3001 in Elkhart is the only modern Mohawk that remains. After it was retired from service in 1957, it was sold to Texas & Pacific Railroad to replace a heavily vandalized 2-10-4 on display at the Texas State Fairgrounds. The NYC locomotive was modified to look like a T&P engine, it also got a new number, 909. After that, the locomotive changed hands multiple times before ending up on static display in Elkhart. For decades, steam fans have dreamed that an operational restoration would someday come for the locomotive. Of the dozen or so known preserved examples of NYC steam, none are currently operational. Only two 4-8-2 locomotives have operated in North America in the preservation era: Frisco 1522 and Canadian National 6060, the latter of which is currently undergoing an operational restoration in Alberta.
“We treat this collaboration and the acquisition of the 3001 with great excitement and seriousness,” Lynch said of the effort to restore the Mohawk. “The locomotive’s future has been uncertain for decades, but with consistent and demonstrated donor support, we believe it can become a major attraction as part of an authentic and immersive experience that will welcome thousands of people from around the world.”
