The Sun has yet to set on this remnant of days gone by. Built in 1929 by the Baldwin Locomotive works she was known as GTW 8374, a P-5 class 0-8-0 switcher, she put in her time shunting cars for the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. In 1960 she was bought for scrap by the Northwestern Steel & Wire mill in Sterling, IL. After 59 years of hard work it looked like the end of the road. But rather than scrap this Beast of Burden, Mr. Dillon put her to work in his scrap yard. Along with 16 of her sisters she would spend the next 20 years eking out a living in the shadow of an Electric Furnace. In 1980 a cutting torch again loomed near when the wire mill found steam engines too costly to continue operating. She was rescued from the threat of being melted down by the Illinois Railroad Museum. Although her working life was over, this iron horse still had a long road ahead.
What was the Museum going to do with 12 nearly identical locomotives? Several were put on display around the mid-west, but sadly five of them were traded to a Chicago scrap yard in exchange for CB&Q 2-8-2 no. 4963.
Again GTW 8374 survived.
She would spend the next 15 years sitting idle, neglected and forgotten on an old, unused siding behind a grain elevator.
Till one day a man from Nebraska found her and began the next chapter of her already full life. She is currently being readied for a journey to a new home. Once again she will hit the High Iron and ride the rails to Nebraska, even if it is on the back of a flat car. Tested by fire and saved from the scrapper’s torch, this 77-year-old engine has outlived many of her kind. She truly has the right to be called “The Survivor”.