BERKELEY – A locomotive that helped build a section of town has been given a second life now that it’s been rebuilt by volunteers.
“This is the first time it’s run in 50 years, and the first time it’s run in Berkeley in about 100 years,” said Gerry Morey, president of the Berkeley Township Historical Society.
The locomotive was built in 1926 by Plymouth Locomotive Works in Ohio and bought by the BW Sangor Corporation. Sangor had a grand plan. He sold about 8,000 lots in the Pinewald section of town, between Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway, between 1928 and 1929, and built the Royal Pine Hotel and an 18-hole golf course.
That hotel is now Crystal Lake Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The manmade lake in front of it was created when they excavated the dirt and the train was used to cart the soil elsewhere.
Engine #2173 was one of two used for this project, said Josephine Morey, Historical Society Publicity Chair. A photo exists of Ziegfeld Follies girls dancing on top of the train as a publicity stunt.
The locomotive was then bought by a brickyard in upstate New York. It crossed hands a few times until it wound up for sale online. The serial number linked it to Berkeley, and the Historical Society was brought in.
This process started a couple years ago, and volunteers have recently got it roaring to life and driving forward and back along a 150-foot track.
A surprising amount of the original locomotive was still in working order, they said. Of the things that had to be replaced, they were replaced with materials to make it look and operate as close to the original as possible.
The track for the railroad came from an amusement park built at Allaire Airport (now Monmouth Executive Airport) by previous owner Ed Brown.
In the future, events taking place at the historical society museum, right next to the recreation department on Route 9, will have train rides as part of the entertainment, providing families with a link to the town’s past.
