Power for Trains
Steam locomotives pulled trains from the beginning of railroads in the 1820s for over a century into the 1950s. Northern Pacific locomotive No. 25 was built to haul main line freight trains at low speeds.
The Schenectady Locomotive Works, near Albany, New York, built the engine in 1899. It is a “Consolidation” type, based on its wheel arrangement, a 2-8-0: a two-wheel pilot truck, eight drive wheels, and no trailing truck. For much of its sixty-year working life it pulled freight trains on the NP out of Butte, often eastward over Homestake Pass. It could also work as a “helper” assisting freight trains up the steep grades on both sides of the pass. During the 1950s, as diesel-electric power replaced steam engines, the NP donated a few of the latter to cities with important NP functions.
The roundhouse was an essential building in the era of steam locomotives. At these semi-circular buildings, located around a turntable in a circular pit, workers inspected, cleaned, did regular maintenance, and made light repairs on engines between runs, which before the 1920s were 100 to 150 miles long. The Great Northern roundhouse crew included machinists, boilermakers, blacksmiths, helpers, and engine wipers. Hostlers shuttled engines between the roundhouse and the passenger station or freight yard. In 1916 the GN employed about thirty workers at its Butte roundhouse.
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