#11 is a 1920 product of the Alco Cooke Works in Paterson, NJ. A 55-ton Mogul (2-6-0) type, she was built on speculation and was intended for the Cuban sugar cane market....but demand dried up before she could be sold. She basically sat around the Alco Yard for 3 years before being acquired by the Narragansett Pier Railroad in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, where she operated on the shortline for some 14 years. It was in this first assignment that she received her number 11, which all of her subsequent owners have kept. When she was finally replaced in 1937, she was sold to the Bath & Hammondsport Railroad in upstate New York, where she worked in the wine country for another dozen years. When she was retired there in 1949, she was carefully stored and kept as a sort of keepsake by that railroad, whose owners didn't have the heart to scrap her. Then, in 1955, she was sold to Dr. Stanley Groman, a preservationist who was developing one of the country's first steam railroad museums....a place called "Rail City", in Sandy Creek, NY. It was during her 22 year tenure there that I first saw her and rode behind her. She still carried her Bath & Hammonsport lettering, including the phrase: "The Champagne Trail" on her cab. When Rail City finally folded in the late 1970s, she was sold to an owner in Rhode Island who had acquired the old Narragansett Pier Railroad and wanted to return the historic power....but alas, she was never restored to service. In 1981, she was sold to the Middletown & New Jersey Railroad in Middletown, NY....but again, she was never restored. Fortunately, those last two owners kept her indoors and out of the weather. Finally, in 2006, she was purchased by Alan Maples, the owner of the Everett Railroad. This paved the way for her return to the rails. Over several years, Mr. Maples crews restored the engine and in late 2015, she ran for the first time in about 40 years. She now operates in excursion service out of Hollidaysburg, PA, and runs during numerous events on the Everett Railroad's calendar each year, including the Santa's Express Train shown here.