When the railroad shut down in 1945, the engines were locked in the roundhouse and the rolling stock was parked. And there it all sat for many years, until the formation of the Quincy Mine Hoist Association, Inc. to preserve and interpret the copper-mining history of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
No. 6 was only new locomotive purchased by the railroad and was the largest and heaviest of its engines. It was moved to the New Jersey Museum of Transportation (Pine Creek Railroad) in 1975 for restoration, but that never took place, and it was returned to the Upper Peninsula in 2009.
Chuck Pomazal, a model builder from Illinois who had built models and dioramas for the Quincy museum, got interested in No. 6. In 2012, Pomazal and a small group of volunteers began the cosmetic restoration of the engine, working primarily with hand tools. Q&TL No. 6 was pulled out of the roundhouse for its public debut on Aug. 25 and 26, even as volunteers began the restoration of No. 5, a smaller 2-6-0.
