EPSW No. 1

The El Paso & Southwestern Railroad No. 1 is a type of 4-4-0 "American Standard" steam locomotive built in 1857 by Breese, Kneeland, and Company.

The locomotive was built for the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad Company in 1857 as their number 40 and named Spring Green. It was later renumbered 111 when the M&PdC was renamed the Milwaukee & St Paul Railroad in 1867; the railroad in turn renaming itself The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 1874.

In 1889, the locomotive was sold to the Arizona and Southeastern Railroad Company, as their number 1, later becoming the El Paso and Southeastern Railroad.

In 1903, it was retired, and around 1909, Locomotive No. 1 was overhauled, painted, and put on display in Downtown El Paso at the intersection of Stanton and Franklin Streets.

In 1960, the Southern Pacific Railroad (which by then absorbed the El Paso and Southwestern) donated it to the University of Texas at El Paso who displayed it near the Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens.

In 1968, El Paso Historical Society and the Junior Chamber of Commerce raised money to build a shelter to protect this important national treasure from the elements.

In 2001 more than 1.1 million dollars of Texas State Transportation Commission and local matching funds were allocated for the removal and restoration of the locomotive.

Today it is on static display at the Railroad and Transportation Museum of El Paso in El Paso, Texas.

Trivia

• This locomotive is almost identical to the Union Pacific No. 119 because it has the same headlight, and the number plate. This is the most important thing?:. Headlight and number plate. Not the unique frame the cylinders 10 degree off of horizontal or the fact the locomotive is the only one existing from Breese Kneeland or that it is 90% original?
• As part of the restoration work, the bell clapper was returned on June 20, 2002, and reinstalled.

Gallery