Restored 1949 locomotive rolls again at Minnesota museum

A 1949 diesel locomotive that once hauled lumber and window frames through Andersen Corp.’s Bayport factory is running again after nearly a year of painstaking volunteer restoration at the Minnesota Transportation Museum in St. Paul.

The engine — an EMD SW1, among the earliest generation of diesel-electric switchers — represents a turning point in Minnesota’s rail history. Compact and durable, it was part of a nationwide transition from steam to diesel that reshaped industrial life after World War II.

“It started with a hinge,” said Tim Nelson, one of the volunteers who led the project. “Once I took that off, I realized there was rust damage everywhere. From there, we just kept going.”

That small repair turned into an 11-month rebuild. Every Saturday, a small crew welded, sandblasted and fabricated new steel pieces by hand. Replacement parts for a 1940s locomotive don’t exist, Nelson said, so volunteers salvaged what they could and built what they couldn’t find.

“They quit making these things in the 1950s,” he said. “You just have to figure it out.”

The 44-foot locomotive, factory-numbered 110, began its life on the Wabash Railroad before coming to Minnesota decades later. At Andersen’s manufacturing campus along the St. Croix River, it spent years shuttling boxcars of raw lumber and finished products along the company’s private tracks — a vital link in a supply chain that helped make Andersen a household name.

Founded in 1903 by Danish immigrant Hans Jacob Andersen, the company grew into the country’s largest window and door manufacturer. The Bayport facility relied heavily on rail, with freight cars delivering lumber and carrying out finished window frames bound for homes across the Midwest.

Volunteer sign painter and graphic designer Mike Alfveby took on the task of bringing it back. He spent months researching photos, tracing letters and redrawing the original graphics.

“I tracked down old photos and even a vintage Andersen lithograph to make sure the layout was exactly right,” he said. “Every letter and number was hand-painted, just like it was decades ago.”

The team stripped the body to bare metal, cut out and replaced corroded panels and resurfaced the deck with a nonslip epoxy coating similar to what’s used on naval ships. Safety stripes were repainted along each step, and lights, horns and handrails were refurbished one by one.

Nelson estimates he alone logged more than 200 hours of work, with total volunteer time likely exceeding 1,000 hours. The Andersen Foundation later contributed $3,500 to help complete the project after learning about it on social media.

“There aren’t many of these left,” Nelson said. “When you look at this engine, you’re looking back at a key moment in railroad history — and in Minnesota’s industrial history, too.”

For volunteers like Nelson and Alfveby, restoring the locomotive was about more than preserving machinery. It was about keeping that period of transformation tangible.

“These engines helped make Minnesota’s factories more efficient,” Nelson said. “They connected local industries to the rest of the country.”

The Minnesota Transportation Museum plans to return the locomotive to weekend service on its half-mile demonstration track in St. Paul. Once again, it will pull a pair of cabooses for visitors eager to see and hear the era of early diesel power.