STEAM-POWERED PASSENGER TRAIN WILL STOP HERE

For the first time in almost 44 years, a steam-powered passenger train will stop at Cape Girardeau.

The former St. Louis-San Francisco (Frisco) Railroad's No. 1522 locomotive is scheduled to arrive in Cape between 3 and 3:30 p.m. today en route from Memphis to St. Louis Union Station.

The locomotive, owned by the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis County and leased to the St. Louis Steam Train Association, and its train is returning from a three-day excursion to Atlanta, Ga., site of the National Railway Historical Society's 1994 convention.

The train is traveling the Burlington Northern Railroad's river tracks between Memphis and St. Louis.

BN Trainmaster Bill Belongy said the train is to leave Memphis at 8 a.m. today. "The train will stop at Blytheville, Ark., to take on water," he said. "It is scheduled to stop at our yard office in downtown Cape to take on water. I understand there will be an opportunity for people to take photographs of the train while it's here."

Belongy said 1522 will be pulling at least six passenger coaches and "several freight cars to help the train's braking action."

The last steam-powered Frisco passenger train, The Sunnyland, left here Aug. 24, 1950. The following day the passenger train was pulled by one of the Frisco's diesel locomotives, which were named for famous race horses.

Frisco passenger service to Cape Girardeau began Nov. 19, 1905. The last regularly scheduled passenger train left Cape Girardeau Sept. 17, 1965.

In the 1980s, a St. Louis railroad club sponsored a round-trip rail excursion to Cape Girardeau's Riverfest. An Amtrak diesel locomotive and Amtrak coaches were used for that excursion.