Santa Fe Engine #5008

Built in 1966, this Santa Fe Diesel-Electric engine has been part of the Walt Disney Hometown Museum, housed in a former Santa Fe station located across from Ripley Park, since 2017. Although the engine is a product of the 1960s, it speaks to the lengthy relationship between the Santa Fe Railroad and Marceline. When Santa Fe planned a railroad from Chicago to Kansas City that continued on to the West Coast, they created stops and towns along the way. Marceline was one of those towns and also served as a headquarters for the railroad company. One of the railroad's directors requested the name Marceline to honor his wife, who bore the Spanish name of "Marcelina." 

Similar to numerous towns throughout the Midwest, Great Plains, and West, Marceline owes its existence to a railroad company. Marceline's history is tied to the rapid expansion of the Santa Fe Railroad during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. More specifically, the company named at the time was the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. When they created a new railroad line operating between Kansas City and Chicago, the first railroad to connect Chicago to the West Coast through Kansas City via a railway, they needed to select stopping points along the way. Planners and railroad executives created stops and new towns so the locomotives could get supplies such as water, food, and fuel. The stops also allowed for crew changes. The railway chose the location where Marceline sits as a primary stop; the town was home to the headquarters for the Santa Fe's Missouri Division. Given its existence as both a stop and headquarters, Santa Fe also invested in the town, including developing homes known as the "Marceline Subdivision." 

Santa Fe Railroad named the town Marceline at the request of one of its directors. He asked that the town be named for his wife, Marcelina. Not long after the railroad arrived, in 1888, the town incorporated as Marceline, Missouri. Stores, businesses, and other buildings arose quickly, even before the town's official incorporation in 1888; Marceline's population reached nearly 2,000 residents by 1890. 

The showcase train engine is a model SD40 6-axle Diesel-Electric locomotive built by the General Motors (GM) Electro-Motive Division in 1966. The locomotives built during the 1960s, notably those developed by GM's Electro-Motive Division, evolved into the dominant train engine. So ubiquitous, in fact, several hundred still traverse the country's railways in the 2020s. Locomotives built today still share profound similarities to the ones built in the 1960s. More than 1,200 SD40 models (like the one displayed in Marceline) were built from 1966 - 1972, which pulled freight throughout North and South America, as well as Africa. 

The Santa Fe engine in Marceline, built in 1966, indeed came from that distinctive locomotive-building period. In 2017, the Santa Fe SD40 was donated to the Walt Disney Hometown Museum. Sam Bailey, a Marceline native and retired locomotive engineer for Santa Fe (which became part of BNSF), spearheaded the restoration project. In 1968, the locomotive's second year in operation, Bailey served as the first SD40 hostler, an engineer who operates a locomotive between shops, yards, and fueling tracks. Bailey began meticulously restoring the Santa Fe SD40 #5008 in October 2017 and finished two and a half years later. It now sits on tracks outside the Walt Disney Hometown Museum, the former home to the Santa Fe Railroad.

Craghead, Alexander Benjamin. "1960s: Two Generations Removed." Railroad & Railfan Magazine. December 18, 2023. https://railfan.com/1960s-two-generations-removed/.

"Diesel Locomotive 5008." Downtown Marceline Foundation. Accessed July 29, 2024. https://www.downtownmarceline.org/tour/diesel-locomotive-5008/

"Old Friends: Retired BNSF Engineer Restories Locomotive He Operated for 41 Years."  BNSF Railroad. Accessed July 29, 2024. https://www.bnsf.com/news-media/railtalk/heritage/santa-fe-5008.html.

"Our History." City of Marceline. Accessed July 29, 2024. http://marcelinemo.us/home/history.html.

White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.