The story certainly sounds credible. The explanation for why the locomotive was left in place during the construction project is also quite convincing. Apparently, this locomotive was lost during the big fire of 1901, so it was probably built in the 1880-1900 era.

Everyone knows that Blondie and Tuco found the lost Confederate Civil War gold at Sad Hill Cemetery, in the grave marked "unknown" right beside Arch Stanton.

In regards to the Jacksonville locomotive, I'd like to know what happened to the plates and artifacts that were recovered from it. Photos of those would have gone a long way to substantiating the newspaper story.

Granted that they wanted to keep this thing a secret, but you would've thought that someone would've photographed it for posterity.

I suspect that all artifacts removed were kept by individuals close to the operation. Not revealing the artifacts is easy to understand when you consider just what a "hot potato" it would be to find a sizable steam locomotive in the excavation for a high profile commercial construction project. The potential costs and delays to the project would be a dreaded threat in this context. I believe I read that they considered not telling anybody about the find.

Having more records of the find, plus having some artifacts would certainly help document the specific locomotive. But the story alone seems quite plausible just on the circumstantial evidence. I suspect that if one were to do extensive historical research, one could find a lot more evidence such as a newspaper story documenting the loss of the locomotive and many more details about the Great Fire that caused it. This alleged discovery of the locomotive on-site was relatively recent in around 1972, and I suspect there are people alive with first hand experience and information. Some of those people may still have the artifacts.

I also suspect there are lots of photographs in existence showing the exposure of the locomotive.