Illinois Central No. 790 locomotive on display at Steamtown National Historic Site

See the Train Collection web page for more locomotives at Steamtown National Historic Site.

Note: Numbers used in this article, such as 2-8-0, are known as Whyte Notation. This is a system to classify steam locomotives that was created by Frederick Whyte in 1900. These numbers describe the arrangements of wheels. Most locomotives only have three numbers, with the first being the number of non-powered wheels used to support the front of the engine, the second being the number of powered wheels, and the third being the number of non-powered rear wheels. For a steam locomotive with four numbers, the middle two are powered wheels.

The Illinois Central No. 790 at Steamtown National Historic Site was built in 1903 by the American Locomotive Company for the Chicago Union Transfer Railway and sold to the Illinois Central Railroad the following year. It originated as a 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive but was rebuilt and modified into a superheated heavy freight locomotive in 1918. No. 790 operated in the Tennessee area and continued to work through the early 1950s.

In 1959, the locomotive was purchased by Louis Keller of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for use in a passenger excursion venture that ran between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. It was subsequently sold in 1965 to David deCamp, an entrepreneur looking to start an excursion company in the Lake Placid, New York, area. His plans fell through and the engine was eventually purchased in 1966 by Steamtown USA founder Nelson Blount.

No. 790 is the only surviving engine used by the Chicago Union Transfer Railway and one of nine used by the Illinois Central Railroad. It is the oldest locomotive in the collection at Steamtown National Historic Site. While it is no longer operational, it was cosmetically restored in 2012.