Southern Pacific’s SP 4449 Passes Through PdC Saturday
By Dan Moris • Jul 20th, 2009 • Category: PdCToday Life
Southern Pacific’s SP 4449 passed through Prairie du Chien early Saturday afternoon pulling vintage passenger cars. The train’s passage through Prairie du Chien was part of a 5,000 mile trip across the country from Oregon to Michigan.
SP 4449 was built in 1941 as a GS-4 “Northern” type locomotive. The only remaining operable “streamlined” steam locomotive of the Art Deco era, this grand Lady of the High Iron pulled Southern Pacific “Daylight” coaches from Los Angeles to San Francisco over the scenic Coast Route and then on to Portland until 1955. Retired to static display at Oaks Park in 1958, most thought SP 4449 would never run again.
In 1974, she was selected to pull the American Freedom Train throughout the United States, and was subsequently rebuilt.
People can follow the train’s progress on Twitter.
Dan Moris is a co-founder of PdCToday.com. He contributes by writing articles, producing feature videos, and hosting a weekly radio podcast.
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Way cool! While at Rivers and Bluffs Animal Shelter, last Saturday, I thought I heard a steam train! It was going way to fast to even attempt to ‘catch-up’. Glad to see ‘local news’ caught this piece of history whooshing by!
As a follow-up here is web site with all of the details as well as video. http://www.sp4449.com/