www.rgusrail.com - Union Pacific Y-57 #1242

Union Pacific T-57 #1242 is located in the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. The locomotive, known as "The 1242", as well as “old Sadie” is a ten wheeler (4-6-0) built in 1890 in the Patterson, NJ, workshops of the Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works. It weighs 148,500 lbs, has 57" drivers and 19" x 24" cylinders. It operated a boiler pressure of 165 psi and had a tractive effort of 21,300 lbs.

#1242 ran on the 45 mile Walcott-Saratoga-Encampment branch line from 1921 to 1954 when it was retired. It was then donated to the City of Cheyenne in 1955 and is now the oldest locomotive in the state of Wyoming, and one of the oldest locomotives still intact that was part of the Union Pacific roster.

Union Pacific T-57 #1242, Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne, WY

The Saratoga and Encampment Railroad was incorporated in 1905 to connect the copper mines at Grand Encampment to the Union Pacific at Walcott. Work completed in 1908 at a cost of $869,733.97. The company later built a roundhouse at Encampment, improved the road-bed and built side tracks and a wye, which brought the total to nearly $900,000.

Unfortunately, work completed just as the copper ore gave out at the Grand Encampment mine, and the line transported mixed freight for most of its life.

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The line was leased to the Union Pacific in 1921 and merged in 1928, when it changed its name to the Saratoga and Encampment Valley Railroad. In 1951, it was absorbed into the Union Pacific completely, becoming the Encampment Branch. The line appears to have ceased operating after #1242’s final run on 15th May 1954.

The late Floyd E. Young was the last engineer to operate #1242. He moved to Laramie, WY, in 1954 and retired from the Union Pacific in 1970 after 44 years of service.

At Laramie, Floyd and his wife began collecting western relics and, in 1970, began building a metal fence around their home from these. After husband and wife passed away, the fence was donated to the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and placed around #1242.

The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens is an 8 acre section of Lions Park. It has three greenhouses and many gardens featuring perennials, annuals, wildflowers, roses, herbs and cacti.

The Western Walkway connects many of the gardens to the Old West Museum, and takes in three landscaped plazas known as the Rotary Century Plazas. Each plaza interprets life in southeast Wyoming over the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s, and includes #1242.

I am not a great fan of the kind of ornamentation that surrounds #1242, but I can appreciate the historic and personal connection with Floyd E. Young.