After the Revolutionary War, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was established on the bank of the East River in New York City. At the yard’s peak during World War II, 75,000 workers helped to repair numerous Atlantic Fleet ships while building such famous battleships as the USS North Carolina, Iowa and Missouri.

Supporting the yard’s operations required immense shipments of raw materials and equipment, mostly by rail. A fleet of switch engines, including 0-6-0T No.4, was employed move incoming and outgoing cars. A March 1919 product of Pittsburgh’s H.K. Porter Company, No.4 spent three years with the Navy before being sold to the neighboring Brooklyn East District Terminal Railroad. For the following three decades, the BEDT’s diminutive steamers chuffed around the Brooklyn docks. In fact, the BEDT was 100% steam until Christmas Day, 1963 when the line finally retired its fleet of steam locomotives. Fortunately, all of the BEDT steamers in service at that time were saved and preserved elsewhere.

Following its retirement, No.13 was sold to George Hart and moved to Reading, Pennsylvania. In 1977, the engine was transferred to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, where it was displayed until being deemed surplus to the core collection in 2010. In October of 2011, the Age of Steam Roundhouse took ownership of No.13 and two former Department of Defense flatcars which were also part of RMoPA’s collection. All three items were shipped to Sugarcreek on highway trucks, arriving on December 12, 2011.

This 0-6-0T locomotive has been repainted and relettered back to its original 1919 appearance as U.S. Navy No.4 and this Navy veteran now sits proudly in the Roundhouse.