Incorporated as a not-for-profit in October 1977 by a group of dedicated volunteers, the Railroad Museum of Oklahoma has set up residence in the old Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe freight warehouse in Enid.
Officially opening its doors to the public on 27th April 1989 just across the street from the Santa Fe passenger depot, the freight building was in a sorry state when renovation started in the late 1980s. Many months and hundreds of hours of work later, the building and its interior began resembling a museum and the rail yard began to take shape. Today, the museum located in the old freight building is an active part of Enid community life. It contains a collection of dining car china and silverware, electrical signalling equipment, a large library of reference books, photos and videos, as well as a large operating HO, N-scale and Lionel model railroad.
The museum store also sells a variety of railroad related items including hats, t-shirts, dining car china, postcards, wooden train whistles, old railroad timetables and operations manuals.
Above, covering two city blocks of former Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad land just north of downtown Enid, the museum yard has a number of interesting and historic engines, speeders, wagons, cars, cabooses and railroad related machinery.
The museum is open five days a week Tuesday-Friday 1.00-4.00 pm and Saturday 9.00 am-4.00 pm. The museum also operates an annual Spring excursion from Enid to Okeene, OK, and return hauled by ex-Vulcan Materials General Electric
50-Ton switcher # 1.
The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway bought thirty Mountain (4-8-2) type locomotives from Baldwin for freight and passenger service, the first batch of fifteen (#1500-#1514) delivered in 1923. Five more (#1515-#1519) were delivered in 1925 and the last ten (#1520-#1529) in 1926. They were designed to haul passenger trains, but were mainly assigned to heavy freight runs.
All thirty locomotives were 88' 6" in length, with a 40’ 4” engine wheelbase and 18’ driver wheelbase. #1519 weighed 32,040 lbs, 244,700 lbs on its 69" drivers.
#1519 is equipped with Walschaert valve gear and 28" x 28" cylinders. The engine was coal fired,
with a 70.3 sq ft grate, 405 sq ft firebox and a combined heating surface of 5,489 sq ft, including 1,107 sq ft superheating. Operating at a boiler pressure of 200 psi it delivered tractive effort of 54,085 lbs. The tender weighs 240,500 lbs light and has a capacity of 11,700 gallons of water and 17 tons of coal.
The engine and tender were presented to the City of Enid and placed on display in a park near St. Mary's Hospital in November 1954.
Four Frisco Class T-54 locomotives have been preserved.
You can see three survivors on this website. #1527 is on
the National Museum of Transportation, St. Louis Train Sheds page, and there is a SLSF #1501 page and a SLSF #1527 page.
#1519 was moved to the museum in December 1997.
The Frisco removed asbestos lagging from most of its engines before donating them to others, and applied new galvanized boiler jacketing over steel bands around the boilers. These had spacers the same thickness as the original lagging. Although this didn't eliminate corrosion entirely, it did help reduce it.
This 50 ton Switcher built by GE was donated to museum by Vulcan Materials from its Wichita, KS, plant. It was originally owned by the Chevrolet Motor Division at Tonawanda, NY.
It has been repainted as Railroad Museum of Oklahoma (RMO) #1.
