Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad No. 23 is a preserved SC-4 class 2-8-0 "consolidation" type steam locomotive originally built by the ALCO in January 1910 for the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad as No. 9. It was renumbered 23 in 1923. It was used for pulling carloads of iron ore, as well as some passenger trains on branch lines, until 1962. In 1963, it was leased to the Marquette and Huron Mountain tourist railroad for use in excursion service between Marquette and Big Bay, until 1974. It was the locomotive that had the longest operating career on the M&HM. After the M&HM was shut down in 1984, No. 23 was sold off to the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoenicia, New York, where it remained as a display piece until 2002. That same year, ESRM announced that they would restore the locomotive to operating condition, and they began the rebuilding process at the Catskill Mountain Railroad's Kingston yard site. As of 2023, No. 23 is still undergoing restoration.
History
Original service life
In the early 20th century, the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad (LS&I) needed locomotives to pull passenger and iron ore trains between West Ishpeming and Marquette. In 1909, to replace their aging fleet of A3 class 0-6-0s, the railroad designed and ordered five small 2-8-0 "consolidation" type locomotives from the American Locomotive Company’s (ALCO) former Pittsburgh Locomotive Works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and they were delivered the following year, being numbered 9–13. No. 23 was numbered 9 at the time and was the very first locomotive of its class. The railroad expected these consolidations to meet their demand for more power, as the freight traffic was getting heavier for them. However, No. 9 and its class mates never met their expectations, because they had multiple problems that nearly plagued them; they had smaller boilers than the slightly older B-4 class locomotive, and they were only capable of less than 35,000 pounds of tractive effort. Their fireboxes were also narrow with a low grate area, since they were tucked in between the rear set of driving wheels. Without a wide enough firebox area to create enough steam, the little consolidations were deemed poor performers compared to their predecessors. They had a bad habit of stalling on grades or giving up when the trains they pulled grew longer, so railroaders often flew curses at them. The gear motion was also looked at as a set of counter gyrations, which earned these locomotives the nickname "Monkie Motions". After a few years of disappointing performance, No. 9 and its classmates were reassigned to pull light mixed trains, as stand-by locomotives when there was power needed for extra ore trains, or use as dock switchers.
In 1923, the LS&I received some additional locomotives, including three more "Monkie Motions", after purchasing the Munising, Marquette and Southeastern Railway (MM&SE). No. 9 and its classmates were reclassified as SC-4s and were renumbered 18–25, and No. 9 was renumbered 23, with the number 9 being given to an 1896-built 2-8-0. Between 1928 and 1934, all the SC-4s, with the exception of No. 25, were sent to the railroad's new facility in Presque Isle and completely rebuilt to decrease the amount of problems that nearly plagued them, and No. 23 was the very first one to be rebuilt. Their boilers were raised, their fireboxes were widened to increate the grate area, they received new super heater cylinders with cylinder saddles, feedwater heater systems for the smokeboxes, and thermic syphons for the fireboxes, their Baker pilliod motions were replaced with Walschaerts motions, their smoke stacks shortened by a few inches, they received staircases on their pilot decks in a "V" shape, and their domes and bells swapped places. These modifications have vastly improved their performances and efficiency compared to their original designs. As the 1930s progressed, No. 23 was offered the name "Philip Smith", the name of an engineer who used to work on the LS&I Princeton-Munising division. The SC-4s resumed to pull mixed freight trains on the LS&I's mainline between West Ishpeming, Marquette, and Negaunee, during the ore seasons, until the LS&I completed Dieselisation by the end of 1962. By that time, No. 23 was stored as an emergency backup locomotive.