Save the Jennie K Locomotive

Dear Friends,

      We hope to raise enough money to purchase and transport the Cedar Point & Lake Erie's No. 2 engine, the Jennie K back to Ohio.  This little engine worked for over two decades at Cedar Point Amusement Park, where countless numbers of children could experience the sights, sounds and smells of the bygone era of steam railroading. Perhaps you even recall seeing her at the front of a train barreling towards the Main Midway Station from the 1960s to the 1980s.

      Jennie was built in 1940 by the H.K. Porter Locomotive Works and was bought by the Acme Brick Company of Perla, Arkansas.  She worked for many years there hauling clay before being replaced by trucks in the 1950s. During this time, many steam engines were cut up for scrap, but Jennie escaped the torch and wound up exchanging hands several times before George Roose brought her to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

At her new home on America’s roller coast, she was rebuilt in fine fashion under the watch of Jack Foster, the Superintendent of the CP&LE. Her tank was lifted off and she was given a makeover. Jennie received a tender, fancy balloon stack, a jacketed boiler with brass bands, a nice coat of dark green paint and a bright red cowcatcher. She looked very much like the locomotives that helped settle the wild west, she even had to fend off train robbers at the park from the cowboy actors who used to populate FrontierTown.

 For many years, the plucky little engine chugged around the peninsula along with her stable mates. After a while Jenny's balloon stack was replaced with her original "shotgun" style stack and a pony truck was added to her front end making her a 2-4-0. Year after year, the engine gave millions of rides on the railroad, but was retired in favor of two other sister engines that were rebuilt instead of her.
     

After several years of rest behind the Cedar Point engine house. The little engine was considered again for rebuilding in the mid-2000s. She was sent to Knott’s Berry Farm for the job, but those plans never came to be and she was put into storage. That is until recently when she will be put on the auction block, where her future remains very uncertain. 

            We hope with the money raised, to bring Jennie back to a railroad museum in Northern Ohio, where further more generations of children and parents can enjoy the charm of this fine machine of the past. We believe that it’s possible to save this engine from disappearing into a private collection and to share her with everyone, with the end goal of putting steam in her cylinders once more.
     

No matter the size of the donation, each dollar helps raise funds that can bring Jennie back to her home. Currently we are talking with several area rail related museums that might have an interest in hosting Jennie, and seeing how she would fit in their collection.

            If we reach our goal, the money raised will help with the transport of the engine back to Ohio, and get her ready to be cleaned up after years of sitting dormant.
   

If we lose the auction, the money will still be used to help fund Ohio railroad preservation. 

Now is the time to act, and bring a sweet summer memory back to Ohio!