Save Our Rail History: Join the Fight to Rescue Shreveport's Abandoned Steam Locomotive!
Photos and Story by Ken Hulsey
I honestly should change my official title to 'Louisiana Railroad Archeologist' because I have the knack of finding all sorts of abandoned railroad equipment all over the Pelican State.
Case in point, last week I was driving around Cross Lake in Shreveport looking for a place to view and photograph the water when I stumbled upon this old steam locomotive just off the road in a closed portion of Ford Park. Wanting to get a good set of photos of the locomotives I snuck in an open gate and weaved my way through twisting roads to the back of the park, dodging crews cutting down all the trees along the way. The old steam locomotive is in bad shape, as is the case with all such locomotives in the state, and it was obvious that the workers at the park had stopped taking care of it long ago.
The locomotive that I discovered has had a rather interesting history, actually. This 2-6-0 Mogul type locomotive was built at the Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works in Patterson, New Jersey, in 1907 for the Isthmian Canal Commission for use in building the Panama Canal and was given the number 278. For seven years, 278 served as a workhorse around the canal construction, hauling both freight and passengers. When the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, the ICC was dissolved, and the locomotive returned to the US and was rebuilt from the 5ft gauge of the Panama Railway to standard gauge.
In 1920, the locomotive was sold to the Dardanelle and Russellville Railroad in Arkansas and given the number 10. Information about the locomotive's days on the D&R is nonexistent, but I did manage to find out when it arrived in Shreveport via a 2011 Red River Valley Historical Society Newsletter that republished a 1957 article that states:
That very same newsletter stated that the locomotive, 'will eventually be moved to a planned Red River Valley
Railroad Historical Society museum site.' The RRVRHS does indeed have a museum adjacent to the Water Works Museum in Shreveport, but I don't know if there are any plans at this point to move the locomotive there. It has been mentioned to me that the organization also owns the diesel switcher, baggage car, and passenger car behind the old Central Station downtown. If this is the case, I have to call out the RRVRHS for allowing these pieces of railroad history to be all but destroyed by the elements and vandals.
If it is your intention to try to preserve pieces of Louisiana railroad history, you are doing a pretty crappy job in my opinion.
Hopefully there are plans for old Number 10 that I am unaware of, or else it will soon be another rusted piece of scrap covered in flora that will be too far gone to ever be restored.
Map:
Photos (taken before my camera fogged up)
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