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RattlerJones [2019-12-21 20:47:19 +0000 UTC]

In July 1944, the year before the conclusion of WWII, the Chicago Milwaukee St. Paul & Pacific (better known as the Milwaukee Road) placed an order of no less than ten 4-8-4 'Northerns' 
from the American Locomotive Company. 
Numbered from 260 to 269, they were designated as the 'S-3' class, assigned for heavy mainline freights and occasionally substituting on crack passenger trains. 
Far from being cumbersome or lightning-fast, these 4-8-4's were certainly one of the most modernized locomotives ever built. 
The 'S-3's weighed in at 460,000 Ibs, and they produced 4500 hp as they also developed a maximum speed of one-hundred miles per hour. 
Saddled on eight 74 inch box-pox drivers, the 'S-3's sported some peculiar features such as the all-weather enclosed cab to combat the sub-zero wintery conditions, a combined steam and sand dome, 
an red oscillating Mars Light, a great cast steel pilot with a folding coupler, and lastly an air horn - much of a sound device on the side from the whistle. 
Unlike the Milwaukee Road's streamlined Class 'A' 4-4-2 'Atlantic's being used in Hiawatha service, the semi-streamlined 4-8-4's were equally equipped with 3 chime steam whistles. 
Lasting for ten years, the career for the faster and stronger 'S-3's was short lived as the Milwaukee Road retired all steam motive power, leaving only two 'Northerns' left in preservation after their last runs. 
Locomotive number 265 currently resides on display at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois while it's sister locomotive number 261 has a different history in preservation. 
Retired from active service, the 261 was sold to the National Railway Museum at Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1958. 
After over 20 years on display, the "North Star Rail" group was formed to purchase and restore the 'S-3' loco at Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
Having been fired up in 1993, she has been running through various excursions even on the New River Gorge excursions at West Virginia. 
By 2010, the 261 was sold from the museum for $225,000 while on a mandatory inspection before being placed into action again in 2013. 
Today, this fabulous and only-operable Milwaukee Road 'S-3' Northern is now the property of the "Friends of the 261". 

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