By Railfan & Railroad Staff

Florida’s Sugar Express announced this week that U.S. Sugar 4-6-2 148 will be restored to its 1940s appearance for the first time since the locomotive was put back in service in 2020. The locomotive will wear accurate Florida East Coast lettering during a two-day photo charter on April 20 and 21.

Tickets are on sale now and cost $575 per person. The event will feature the locomotive on both passenger and freight consists. Photo stops will include sugar farming operations and cane loading stations, sweeping curves, vintage automobiles, historic trestles, bridges, and stations. A night photo session will also be held. Guests must make their own lodging and travel accommodations and additional information is available during checkout. Attendees will be transported to photo locations on board the train for the event.

The oil-fired locomotive was built at Alco’s Richmond Works in April 1920 and worked in passenger service for Florida East Coast before being sold to U.S. Sugar in 1952. At U.S. Sugar, the locomotive moved sugar cane from the fields to a mill at Clewiston, Fla. After it was retired by US Sugar, 148 briefly returned to passenger service in the 1970s at New Jersey’s Black River & Western and Morristown & Erie. The locomotive saw a number of owners after that and spent time in Colorado, Michigan and Connecticut. In each instance, hopes to restore the locomotive to operation always faltered. In late 2016, U.S. Sugar repurchased the locomotive and brought it back to Clewiston for restoration. It returned to service in 2020. Since then it has operated with a modern U.S. Sugar logo on the tender.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Sugar Express website.