Illinois Central 2613

Illinois Central 2613 was a 4-8-2 "Mountain" type steam locomotive, built by the Illinois Central Railroad's Paducah, Kentucky shops in 1943. No. 2613 and its class were the most powerful 4-8-2 locomotives ever built.

The locomotive was eventually used to pull the Louisville and Nashville Railroad's centennial train in 1959, and then it pulled two fantrip excursions on the Illinois Central in 1960. Despite efforts being made to preserve No. 2613, the Illinois Central scrapped it in 1961. Following some ownership changes over a multi-year period, its tender eventually followed suit in 2011.

Construction and design
No. 2613 was one of twenty 2600 class 4-8-2 locomotives (Nos. 2600-2619) constructed at the Illinois Central Railroad's (IC) Paducah, Kentucky shops between 1942 and 1943. Construction involved fabricating new boilers and shipping in one-piece cast frames from General Steel Castings in Granite City, Illinois. The locomotives were also equipped with twelve-wheel tenders that held 20,000 usgal of water and 26 tonnes of coal; a design feature that was rare on IC steam locomotives. The 2600 class was a step-up design of the IC 2500 class 4-8-2's, and their design was identical to the Baldwin-built 2800 series locomotives on the Wabash Railroad, but the 2600's were larger and heavier.

The 2600's were equipped with 70 in diameter Boxpok and Baldwin spoke driving wheels, 28x30 in cylinders—which were slightly smaller than those on the 2500's—and a boiler pressure of 275 psi. They were able to generate 78,450 lbf of tractive effort and travel at a top speed of 70 mph, making the IC 2600's the most powerful 4-8-2 locomotives ever built. They also lacked new design features that were commonly used by other railroads, including feedwater heaters, boosters, and roller bearings, making the 2600 designs simplified.

Revenue service
No. 2613 and most of the other 2600's and 2500's were assigned to pull freight trains from Chicago to East St. Louis and Cairo, and in later years, they operated on the IC's primary route between Chicago and Memphis, Tennessee. In 1950, after EMD GP7 demonstrator No. 300 was tested on the IC, IC management decided to retire their entire steam locomotive fleet and replace them with locomotives from EMD. Many GP7's and GP9's were delivered to the railroad during the 1950s, and by the end of 1956, the Chicago-Memphis route was dieselized. No. 2613 was subsequently reassigned to operate in the St. Louis Division, where many coal mines the railroad served were located. In February 1959, No. 2613 was put into storage at Centralia, Illinois, after additional diesel locomotives were assigned to the St. Louis Division, and the railroad was completely dieselized by June.

Later that year, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), which had already retired all of their steam locomotives, was looking for a steam locomotive for use in pulling a train that celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first passenger train. The IC agreed to lease No. 2613 to the L&N for the run, and the 2600 was cleaned and repainted at the Paducah Shops. On October 24, No. 2613 pulled the L&N's fifteen-car Centennial train from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee and return, and 850 passengers were on board. Despite the locomotive running out of coal shortly before arrival in Nashville, it completed the run without incident. After the centennial run ended, No. 2613 returned to Paducah with a freight train in tow, and the IC had planned to put the locomotive back into storage.

A concurrent boost in coal traffic in the Kentucky Division encouraged officials to return some of their steam locomotives to service, and beginning on October 28, the No. 2613 pulled coal trains around Paducah alongside 2-10-2 No. 2807, and later, 2-10-2's Nos. 2739, 2802, and 4-8-2 No. 2524. By the end of March 1960, all steam locomotives in the Kentucky Division were put back into storage at Paducah. On May 14, No. 2613 pulled "The Bluegrass Safari", a sight-seeing excursion train sponsored by Rail Museum Safaris, and it toured the IC between Louisville and Paducah. At Paducah, passengers were allowed to tour the IC shops and roundhouse, where No. 2739 was fired up as back-up power for whenever No. 2613 suffered a mechanical problem, but the latter ran without any problems. On October 2, No. 2613 pulled another excursion train between Louisville and Dawson Springs, and it was sponsored by the Louisville Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS). No. 2613 became the very last steam locomotive to operate under IC ownership after the October 2 run.

Scrapping and tender remains
In late 1961, the IC opted to scrap all their remaining steam locomotives with their own crews, since they made more money by selling locomotive remains in gondola cars as scrap than by selling intact locomotives to scrap dealers. The Kentucky Railway Museum (KRM) of Louisville began negotiating with the IC to acquire the No. 2613 locomotive, with several members traveling to Chicago to meet with IC management, but the railroad was only interested in selling the 2600 for its scrap value, instead of donating it. The KRM, which had only been formed a few years prior, could not raise enough money to meet IC's demands. By January 1962, No. 2613 and all the other remaining 2600's were dismantled in Paducah.

For unknown reasons, tenders from the 2600's remained in storage after their companion locomotives were scrapped, including that of No. 2613. Sometime in the late 1960s, Chicago area railfan and steam locomotive mechanic Richard "Dick" Jensen, who had explored several scrap yards to scavenger steam locomotive parts, acquired No. 2613's tender, along with a tender from fellow 2600 No. 2612, and he moved it to the Chicago, West Pullman and Southern Railroad (CWPS) for storage. He had plans to use both tenders behind Burlington Route locomotives Nos. 4963 and 5632 in excursion service, but as he fell into financial trouble in the 1970s, Jensen fell behind on rent to store the tenders on the CWPS.

In 1981, the CWPS gave up on collecting rent from Jensen, and they acquired the tenders, along with Ex-Mississippi Eastern 4-6-0 No. 303, as compensation. They subsequently sold the tenders and No. 303 at an auction to William Latham of Rockford, Illinois. Latham had planned to create a small railroad museum with the locomotive and tenders, but this plan had fallen through, and No. 303 was eventually acquired by the Monticello Railway Museum in June 2000. A Monticello member tried to secure one of the IC tenders from the Rockford collection for preservation, but the efforts failed, and both IC tenders were scrapped in 2011.

Legacy
Since the spring of 1996, a team of mural artists from Lafayette, Louisiana, led by Robert Dafford, painted murals on the downtown Paducah flood walls to address Paducah's history, and one of the murals is dedicated to IC No. 2613 and its final runs in 1960.