The Southern Pacific (SP) 4449 made its return trip through Little Falls and passed the Cass Gilbert Depot Tuesday, as it headed back home to Portland, Ore. The trip began in July, when the locomotive made its way to the Train Festival in Owosso, Mich. The SP 4449 was built in 1941 as a GS-4 "Northern" type locomotive.

The locomotive features a 4-8-4 wheel arrangement, it is 110 feet long, 10 feet wide and 16 feet tall, weighs 433 tons, and operates with a boiler pressure of 300 psi. Eight 80-inch diameter drivers and a unique booster truck can apply 5,500 horsepower to the rails which allows the locomotive to exceed 100 miles per hour.

The SP 4449 is the only remaining operable "streamlined" steam locomotives of the Art Deco era, and pulled Southern Pacific "daylight" coaches from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then to Portland until 1955.

The locomotive was retired and displayed at Oaks Park in 1958. In 1974, the SP 4449 was selected to pull the American Freedom Train throughout the U.S., and was rebuilt.

The SP 4449 is maintained by an all-volunteer group called the Friends of SP 4449. More information can be found online at http://www.sp4449.com. -- Terry Lehrke