Through an ironic twist of fate; the unstylish, workaday Baldwin-built GTW P-5 class eight wheel yard goat became very well represented in preservation when Northwestern Steel & Wire of Sterling, IL donated their twelve examples (which they had purchased as scrap but used as switchers until the early 1980s, becoming one of the very last places in the United States where steam locomotives could be found operating on a daily basis) to IRM. However, due to lack of need for so many of the same class they had difficulty finding homes for all of them. Three were shoved aside on a spur track in the nearby town of Galt and left to rot until 2008, when two of them were finally moved for preservation. As of 2022 one (8305) still remains there. At one point it was supposedly going to Quincy, IL for display but heavy overgrowth and continued deterioration make it ever more unlikely that it will be able to be saved with each passing year. |