An historic locomotive, seen above in operation on the Santa Fe Railroad in California in 1977, has been donated to the Rosenberg Railroad Museum. Photo courtesy of Sidney Vaught.
National Railway Historical Society, Inc. (NRHS) has formally donated a historic diesel locomotive to the Rosenberg Railroad Museum in Rosenberg, Texas. The locomotive was originally built in 1945 by ALCO-GE for the Santa Fe Railway. As Santa Fe No. 2350, the end-cab switch engine worked in California and the Texas Panhandle before being retired in 1977.
Rosenberg Railroad Museum President Bill Rickert said, “We are excited at the opportunity to have the ATSF 2350 switcher at our museum. We believe this addition to the Rosenberg Railroad Museum will be pivotal in taking us to the next level with our projected growth and expansion. We will work with Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNSF) to create a spur at the museum that will eventually allow us to house additional rolling exhibits and schedule excursions from the museum.”
No. 2350 was donated to Gulf Coast Chapter NRHS in 1999 by General Electric International, Inc. (GE). The locomotive had been used by GE at its Houston heavy equipment repair facility but became surplus when most rail-related work was moved from the Houston plant to north Texas.
Gulf Coast Chapter NRHS Board Member Tom Marsh said, “Rosenberg has a long association with the Santa Fe Railway having been established at the junction of Santa Fe’s Texas predecessor Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway and the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad. Rosenberg was named in honor of GC&SF President Henry Rosenberg. Our organization is happy that this nearly 70 year-old Santa Fe locomotive has found an appropriate home alongside the tracks of the Santa Fe Railway at the Rosenberg Railroad Museum.”
The donation was arranged in support of the planned move of Gulf Coast Chapter NRHS’s historic railroad equipment collection to the new Texas Railroading Heritage Museum in the Houston area. Gulf Coast Chapter NRHS and Rosenberg Railroad Museum will cooperate in arranging for the movement of the locomotive from Houston to Rosenberg. No date has been set for the move yet.