Frisco 1630 approaches the siding at the Seeman Road crossing at Union, Illinois as it heads east with a passenger train, during the 70th Anniversary Weekend Celebration for the Illinois Railway Museum at Union on September 16th, 2023.

According to the IRM website: St. Louis – San Francisco Railroad (“Frisco”) 1630 is the museum’s most famous steam engine. A “Russian Decapod,” it was built in 1918 for export to Russia but was embargoed when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. Instead, the newly completed engine was sold to the Frisco, which used it in both freight and passenger service into the 1950s. The Frisco later sold it to Eagle-Picher Mining, where it saw use hauling freight and aggregate trains until the mid-1960s. It arrived at the IRM in 1967.

Tech Info: Nikon D800, Nikon Sigma 150-600 @ 600mm, f/6.3, 1/1250, ISO 1000.