The McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park is home to Magma Arizona Railroad #6, a 2-6-0 Mogul type locomotive, originally built by Baldwin in 1907 as #26 for the Arizona & New Mexico Railway in Clifton, AZ. In January 1922, the locomotive was leased to the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad and renumbered #130. It was then sold to the Magma Arizona Railroad in December 1922 and was renumbered #6.
The Magma Arizona was built by the Magma Copper Company. Initially headquartered in Superior, AZ, it primarily hauled copper ore on 30 miles of track to and from the Southern Pacific mainline in Magma, AZ. Until the 1940s, when trucking became more economical, it also hauled cattle for local ranchers. Built as a 36” narrow gauge railway in 1915, conversion to standard gauge was just being completed when #6 arrived. It was retired in 1960 and was eventually sold to the Scottsdale Railway & Mechanical Society in 1977.
The Magma Arizona was the last railroad to end steam hauled revenue services in the continental United States: #5, a 2-8-0, made its last revenue run on 5th September 1967 and reverted to standby.
The McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park is located at 7301 E Indian Bend Rd in Scottsdale, AZ.
In 1967, Anne and Fowler McCormick donated 100 acres of the McCormick Ranch to Scottsdale for use as a public park but their son, Guy Stillman, was the driving force behind the park. His 15” gauge “Paradise & Pacific Railroad” was on the property, which he offered to the city in 1971. The park officially opened on 4th October 1975 as the McCormick Railroad Park, but it was renamed McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in 1996 in recognition of Guy Stillman.
As well as the “Paradise &
Pacific Railroad”, the site is
home to the meticulously restored 1950 Scottsdale Charro Carousel, the historic 1930 Gabe Brooks Machine Shop, Navajo hogans, the Xeriscape Arboretum and three model railroad clubs.
It is also houses the Arizona WWII “Merci Train” Car donated to the State by the people of France (shown later on this page).
#6 weighs 151,500 lbs, 134,000 lbs on its 59” drivers. An oil burner with 21” x 26” cylinders, it operated at a boiler pressure of 200 psi delivering 33,607 lbs tractive effort. The copper coloured smokebox is actually how it appeared during its last years on the Magma Arizona.
#6 is the only Arizona & New Mexico Railway locomotive remaining in Arizona. You can see
the two other surviving Magma Arizona engines on this website, #5, a 2-8-0, on the Galveston Railroad Museum page and #7, another 2-8-0, the Texas State Railroad page.
Above, #6 is on display with the Roald Amundsen Pullman Car and, right, Santa Fe Baggage Car American Railway Express #197184.
The baggage car was built as a dining car by the Pullman Company in 1914 and rebuilt as a baggage car for use during World War II. It is one of six cars built by the Pullman Company in 1928 at a cost of $205,000 and was used by Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. It was donated to the Scottsdale Railroad and Mechanical Society by Mr and Mrs Franz Talley.
The park is also home to the car donated to the state of Arizona by the French people as part of the “Merci Train” (Thank You Train).
In the winter of 1947-48, the US began a relief effort to war-torn France and Italy: citizens donated more than seven hundred box cars of goods, food and clothes to an “American Friendship Train”. In gratitude, a group of French citizens organised a private effort to thank the people of the US for their assistance in the two world wars and for the relief aid. The result was the forty-nine box car “Merci Train”.
The 250 ton train arrived in New York aboard the Magellan on 3rd February 1949. One box car was for each of the states, and one was to be shared between the District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii. The cars were called “40 et 8” (40 and 8) cars because the French military rated them to carry forty soldiers or eight horses.
You can see other “40 et 8” cars on the Nevada State Railroad Museum page of this website, the Kentucky Railway Museum, the B&O Museum Roundhouse, the Nevada State Railroad Museum and Union Station, Ogden pages.