Built for $90,000 by the Lima Locomotive Works, #1223 is a Berkshire type (2-8-4) locomotive delivered to the Pere Marquette in 1941. It hauled heavy wartime traffic, including the PM's premiere expedited freights, #40 and #41. Its weight, however, restricted it and all the other PM Berkshires to the lines from Toledo, OH, to Saginaw, MI, Detroit to Grand Rapids, MI, and Grand Rapids to Chicago, IL.
The engine weighs 442,500 lbs, 277,600 lbs on its 69” drivers, with a 42’ engine wheelbase and 18’ 2” driver wheelbase. It has Baker valve gear and 26” x 34” cylinders. With a 90.3 sq ft grate and 466 sq ft firebox, the total heating surface is 6,709 sq ft, including 1,932 sq ft superheating. Operating at a boiler pressure of 245 psi, it delivered 69,368 lbs tractive effort. The tender weighs 284,800 lbs light and has a capacity of 22,000 gallons of water and 22 tons of coal.
When the Pere Marquette was absorbed by the Chesapeake
& Ohio Railway in 1947, #1223 was assigned C&O number #2657 but never bore the new number as it had not been
paid off at the time and the merger agreement stipulated
that equipment still under trust remained in Pere Marquette livery.
#1223 was retired in 1951 and moved to New Buffalo, MI, to be scrapped although it survived until 1960, when it was repainted and moved to the state fairgrounds in Detroit.
In 1980, Michigan state fair officials decided to
sell #1223. The city of Grand Haven won the bidding process and, with the help of the Michigan National Guard, as well as the Grand Trunk
Western and Chessie System railroads, #1223 was moved to Grand Haven on 1st September 1981. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
#1223 is on display just off N Harbor Drive with
PM Steel Cupola Caboose #A986, PM Auto Box
Car #72222 and GTW Wooden Cupola Caboose #77915.
PM #72222 was built by the Ralston Steel Car
Company in Columbus, OH, in 1946 and weighs 57,000 lbs. It was later retired and used as a storage facility in the Chesapeake & Ohio's Saginaw, MI, freight yard. It was donated to the West Michigan Railroad Historical Society in Grand Rapids, MI, by the Chessie, and is on loan to the City of Grand Haven.
PM #A-986, was built in 1941 by the St. Louis Car Company in St. Louis, MO. It is 32' long and weighs 45,000 lbs.
The caboose was regularly used on the Pere Marquette’s nightly freight that passed through Grand Haven which was known as the "Cannonball" from its service to the Campbell Wyant & Cannon Foundry Company in Muskegon, MI, which was once the largest producer of auto castings in the world. #A-986 was retired in 1981 and donated to the City of Grand Haven by the Chessie System in 1983.
Wooden Caboose #77915 was bult in about 1894 for the Grand Trunk of Canada and was then transferred to the Grand Trunk Western.
The caboose is 34' long, weighs 43,000 lbs, was rebuilt in 1925 and donated to the City of Grand Haven in 1980.