The Mid-Continent Railway Museum’s decades-long effort to restore Chicago & North Western R-1 Class 4-6-0 1385 to service is in the home stretch. Mid-Continent recently announced it was raising money to move the locomotive from the private shop where it was rebuilt at to its museum in North Freedom, Wis. Upon arrival at the museum, the locomotive will undergo a hydro test and steam test before hopefully being put back into regular service in 2026.
Locomotive 1385 was built in March 1907 by the American Locomotive Company as one of 325 R-1 class 4-6-0s owned by the C&NW. The R-1s were used in fast freight service and secondary passenger service. The ten-wheelers were the largest single class of steam locomotives the C&NW ever owned. Locomotive 1385 was retired in 1956 and then purchased by Mid-Continent members in 1961 for $2,600. The locomotive ran at Mid-Continent and across the Midwest (including a stint leading the Circus World Museum train) until it was taken out of service in 1998.
Project Manager Micheal Wahl said a number of issues were discovered with the locomotive in the years after it was taken out of service, and at times, the restoration was put on the back burner. In 2011, however, a $250,000 challenge grant from the Wagner Foundation kicked the restoration back into high gear. In the years since, a new boiler has been built for it, and the locomotive’s original tender has been rebuilt.
“This has been a ground-up restoration,” Wahl said.
The locomotive is at a private shop about 40 miles away from North Freedom (the shop is not open to the public). Due to a low bridge on the route between the contractor and the museum, the locomotive will need to be trucked to a Wisconsin & Southern siding, loaded onto a flatcar and then moved by rail for the final part of the journey to North Freedom. The move is expected to cost $80,000. Donations can be made either online or be mailed to P.O. Box 358, E8948 Museum Road, North Freedom, WI 53951 (Please write “Bring the 1385 Home Fund” in the memo line).
