Photo of MKT 4-4-0 #311 when in service:

http://www.katyrailroad.org/images/mktstm311.jpg

The only surviving Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad steam locomotive, this is one of the 1890's American Standard types that the Katy rebuilt in the early/mid 1920's to operate over light density lines. The engines were given new boilers at that time. It's "early" donation to the Museum of Transportation in 1952 kept it from joining all of its sisters in meeting the scrappers torch (Katy's last active steamer was 2-6-0 #508 which operated until May of 1954). At one time, an effort was started to restore the 311 (which was renumbered in 1948 as #1303) to service to run over MOT's limited trackage at the museum. A shame the effort was shelved as the engine is probably one of the prettier surving Americans.

Les

What really saved this loco was its selection to pull the "Katy Flyer" publicity train that began touring the MKT in 1945 to celebrate the anniversary of the line being the first into Texas and "Winning the West." It pulled a five car train and wore many names and numbers in this role over the years. Then the entire train was donated to the Museum of Transprtation, arriving in St. Louis under its own power. It was brought out to the museum the next day, but did not power itself for that last trip. The "Russian" decapod at MOT was briefly used by the MKT before going elsewhere and winding up on the Frisco, so in that sense MOT has the only two surviving MKT locos, even if only one was built for the line.