02/05/2023
- Post credit to Mary Rae McPherson. Thank you Mary for the very interesting information about the 2500! -
In the last post, we looked at the less than successful result of the Illinois Central's 1937 rebuilding designs. Here is the one that exceeded expectations!
2-10-2 Central type #2953 was built by Lima in 1921; one of an eventual 125 locomotives of the type. True to type, they were very powerful and not very fast.
During the Great Depression, passenger service fell off dramatically. This resulted in the increased use of the 2400 class passenger Mountains in freight service, where they proved adept as fast freight locomotives. Looking to speed up freight schedules, the railroad developed a plan to rebuild the 2900 class 2-10-2's into fast freight 4-8-2's.
So it was that #2953 disappeared into the Paducah shops, where she became the prototype of the new 4-8-2's. She emerged in March, 1937, as #2500.
She quickly prove to be a resounding success, and within three months she was followed by the next of what would eventually be a class of fifty-six engines.
This photo finds #2500 at East St. Louis on March 14th, 1939, two years after her rebuilding. At this point she is mated to a large six-axle tender, and lacks the square sand domes that would soon become an Illinois Central hallmark.
A little over two decades later, #2500 would be in the dead-line at Centralia, Illinois, when the railroad was talked into donating a locomotive for preservation in the city's park. #2500 just happened to be easy to grab out of the line, and so it was that the first example of the Illinois Central freight Mountain was saved for posterity.
Photo by R.J. Foster, scanned from a negative in my collection
