I knew that the Grand Canyon Railway had purchased Spokane, Portland & Seattle 2-8-2 #539 (ex-Northern Pacific #1762), but the last I had heard is that the Mike had not been restored. Ran across this photo today:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4443996

If there was a previous thread on RyPN that I missed about this work, please let me know and I'll cancel this one. The Mikado appears to be on display in Williams, Arizona with AT&SF box car #205478 (perhaps a MofW car number?) and some kind of ore or hopper car. The 2-8-2 looks pretty good!

Les

I saw the #539 briefly back in September, by that point it was on display with a pair of GCRy passenger cars and a steel caboose. As I recall, GCRy got it shortly before pulling the plug on most of their steam program- it has definitely not been restored, but has been given some cosmetic work as your picture shows.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

This actually was a trade Les. GCR 18 for the 539. I was in a friend's truck in Washington State when the OK for going ahead with this deal was decided and at the time, was really pleased for both parties. I thought each was getting a locomotive well suited to their operations.

The 539 has 28" cylinders, 1" larger than 4960 and is a little heavier. 4960 has always suffered a little from her granger road less weight on the drivers while in AZ. IIRC, published factor of adhesion is 3.89. When I was there in 1999, the equalization was changed a little to increase that but we had a lot of problems with the boxes running hot so it eventually went back to the way she was for most of her life.

Too bad, it'll likely never happen but 539 is fortunate to get painted.

GCR 20 was also a part of the trade.

Robby