Rolling by the Roundhouse

Engine No. 12 is rolling by the Age of Steam roundhouse in Sugarcreek Ohio.

In September 1905, the American Locomotive Company’s Pittsburg Works constructed A-7 class 0-6-0 No. 1643 for the Southern Railway. After over four decades of working for the Southern, the engine was retired and parked in the scrap line. Unlike its numerous sister engines, however, No. 1643 got a reprieve from when it was purchased by the Morehead and North Fork Railway, a small 4-mile-long short line in Kentucky. Renumbered to 12, the engine was put to work hauling trains of local clay products, coal and lumber to the Chesapeake & Ohio interchange in Morehead.

After the M&NF was abandoned, No.12 was shoved into a ramshackle shed in Clearfield and largely forgotten. In late 2011 the locomotive owner’s widow and son agreed to a sale to Jerry Jacobson and plans were made to haul her to Ohio by truck. What seemed like a straightforward process turned into a three-month ordeal of permit challenges and truck breakdowns, but No.12 was finally hauled to Sugarcreek, Ohio and arrived at the Age of Steam Roundhouse on February 7th, 2012. She then underwent six years of rehab and began steaming again in the summer of 2018.