BNSF Today

BNSF Joins Effort to Bring Second Life to Chinese Steam Locomotives

2006-06-12

BNSF, along with Houston's Port Terminal Railroad Association and Iowa Interstate Railroad, have combined efforts to provide a "second life" to a pair of Chinese, class QJ 2-10-2 steam locomotives used in passenger service.

The locomotives arrived in Houston this past weekend and will be transported by BNSF on special eight-axle flatcars to Rock Island, Ill., this week. Once in Iowa, the locomotives will be tested for Federal Railroad Association compliance and to ensure proper operation.

The locomotives, including No.7081 that had the distinction of hauling the world's last regularly scheduled mainline steam passenger train, were acquired by Railroad Development Corp. of Pittsburgh (RDC), a privately held railway management and investment company that owns or has financial interests in rail properties in the United States including the Iowa Interstate Railroad linking Chicago, Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb., and in six other countries in Latin America, Africa and Europe.

"The final mainline passenger steam service in China ended in December 2005," says Henry Posner III, chairman, RDC. "Ideally there would be an opportunity for these locomotives to be used by regional or tourist railroads."

The QJ, a derivation of the Soviet LV class, was the last Chinese steam design to go into production and was the most numerous steam class to run in China. Eventually more than 4,700 QJs were built, the majority between 1964 and 1988. Two Chinese-built steam locomotives, both 2-8-2s built in 1988, currently operate in the United States, transporting tourists.

A class JS runs on Iowa's Boone & Scenic Valley. A class SY, built for Connecticut's Valley Railroad, was sold to the New York, Susquehanna & Western, which transferred the engine to the NYS&W Historical Society.

A third 1988 Chinese 2-8-2, also class SY, is in storage in Pennsylvania, having worked on the now-embargoed Knox & Kane tourist line to Kinzua Viaduct.

Photo credit - Dennis Daugherty, Railroad Development Corp.

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