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The Queen Fundraising effort aimed She is a one-of-a-kind — at 450 tons and 111 feet long — a monument to the age of steam.
She is the Queen — the Madam Queen. In 2005, after she had sat for nearly 50 years, the Railroad Artifact Preservation Society teamed with the city of Amarillo to have her moved from in front of the old Santa Fe Depot, now an auction house, to her own park near tracks on which she once may have run. Should the fundraising come through, engine 5000 will have a home of glass and brick built around her. That's the dream of Sam Teague, president of Santa Fe Locomotive Development Museum and RAPS. According to the RAPS Web site, "She was the experimental prototype for the 5001 and 5011 Class of Supreme Steam locomotive of the Santa Fe Railway." The museum will be known as the Santa Fe Locomotive Development Museum, with the theme provided in cooperation with Signature Press and Larry E. Brasher, whose book "Santa Fe Locomotive Development: the Journey to Supreme Steam and Pioneer Diesels" provides the basis for the content of the building and the displays, Teague said. "I spent 21ž2 years of my life planning, some days eight hours," he said of the effort to get the Queen moved to its new location on Second Avenue and Lincoln Street. The locomotive, built by Baldwin Locomotive Works, was a prototype designed by Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe personnel, according to Brasher. "After three years of design work, and almost a full year of production, including a hectic month in 1930 solving weight reduction and other production problems, the 5000 was finally delivered in December 1930." Teague said he will coordinate his capital campaign for the $1.5 million structure so it won't interfere with the fundraising for the new museum in the historic Santa Fe Building. On the Web: http://www.railroadartifactpreservation.org E-mail
comments about this story Posted: May 1, 2008
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