Locomotive No. 5 Conservation Project

Hi All! We apologize for the late history post, but we have been really busy painting the steam engine! Another post will appear in the coming days with our progress! For today’s history fact, we are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Iron Mountain Railway! On April 18th, 1986, the Iron Mountain Railway departed the depot at 1PM for it’s first run of all time. Here is a video from the volunteers, reflecting on 35 years of railroading.... We would also like to give credit to the following, for the video footage: WR Productions Southeast Missourian Explore Your World Productions James Tiroch DivergingClearVideo Scooter2Cape Thank you all, and we will see you again soon! -The Steam Team

The Steam Team is always hard at work planning out the restoration of Number 5! With a lot of planning, however, there is not much work being done that we can show you all. To combat this, however, we have decided to start posting history facts about Number 5 and the Iron Mountain Railway! This will be every other week, on Wednesdays. We hope that you all will enjoy them! On September 1st, 1997, Union Pacific #844 was on tour for the public to see. #844 came right through the... heart of Cape Girardeau, and went straight towards Delta, MO on the Union Pacific mainline. Danny Davis, the engineer of Number 5, was determined to meet this extraordinary locomotive at the exchange in Delta. Within a couple of hours, he brought the locomotive to the diamond and met #844 just in time. #844 is not the only locomotive that #5 has met at the diamond in Delta. Cotton Belt #819 was also in Delta on tour headed towards St. Louis, and there is a very rare video on YouTube of the two meeting. Check it out below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvln4EdnyYc And that is your Number 5 steam fact of the day! Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday! -The Steam Team

We have been working really hard to try and get ready for the season’s opening, and tours for Number 5! Can’t wait to see you all!

To celebrate the opening weekend of the St Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railway, Steam Team members Matt Terlunen and Aspen Welker began painting the boiler of #5! The idea is to restore Number 5 cosmetically first, and painting the boiler black was the first step in that cosmetic restoration to make it look presentable. The project is still underway, but will be completed in the coming days. We can’t wait to meet you all this season! -The Steam Team