Classic Trains – September 2019

86 CLASSIC TRAINS FALL 2019

Classics Today Where to find living railroad history

The steam locomotives that arrived in

1944 to buttress the American and

Canadian war efforts [pages 14–49] ended

up having short but valorous careers.

Dieselization was just around the corner

and many of the war babies wouldn’t put

in even a full decade’s worth of work

before retiring to the scrap line.

But that wasn’t true for a blessed trio

of 1944 engines that have compiled a

track record far surpassing their years of

regular service. We’re talking, of course,

about locomotives with three very famous

numbers: Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No.

765, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261, and

Union Pacific 4-8-4 No. 844. Thanks to

their decades in excursion service, they

require little introduction.

NICKEL PLATE 765

The first German V2 rockets were just

beginning to torment London in Septem-

ber 1944 when Lima Locomotive Works

delivered 765 to the Nickel Plate. The

NKP was already fielding an elite roster

of Berkshires when the 765 arrived on

the property, one of 30 in the S-2 class

built that year, and one can assume the

2-8-4 went right to work, helping the

bridge carrier keep its tight, fast sched-

ules. It would keep on doing that right up

until retirement in 1958.

One of six NKP Berks saved for pos-

terity, the 765 spent many years on dis-

play in Fort Wayne, Ind., until the Fort

Wayne Railroad Historical Society res-

cued the engine from a city park in 1974.

(The engine had been masquerading as

scrapped sister 767, which opened a line

elevation through town in 1955.) The big

2-8-4 has been operated off and on —

mostly “on” — ever since it was returned

to steam in 1979, including stints with

Norfolk Southern’s now-ended 21st Cen-

tury Steam program in the 2010s.

The Berkshire’s longtime home is the

FWRHS shop at New Haven, just east of

Fort Wayne near the NS yard, where

Three war babies still in steam

1944-built Milwaukee 261, Nickel Plate 765, and UP 844 have had long excursion careers

BY KEVIN P. KEEFE

Milwaukee 261 performs a photo runby at Bongards, Minn., on the Twin Cities & Western during a September 22, 2018, excursion. Brian Schmidt