No. 1813 is a EMD MRS-1 (Military road switcher) built by General Motors Electro-Motive division for the United States Army Transportation Corps. It was built in the early 1950's at the start of the Cold War. It participated in USATC trials in 1952 before being placed into long time storage in the Marietta, Pennsylvania Army Depot.
In the summer of 1971 it came out of storage and was assigned to the 714th Railway Battalion in Fort Eustis, Virginia, where it was used for training in Fort's Hanks yard. It remained there until the late 1980's until it was taken to the DOT Transportation Test Center, where thankfully, it was not used for destructive testing.
In May 1996, #1813 started its 600 mile journey to Heber City Utah, where it started its new life at the Heber Valley Historic Railroad. The Army paint scheme was painted over with black and a single red stripe down the middle and was then repainted to the black and yellow Rio Grande Scheme in 2009. For many years it was used to pull passenger excursions at the railroad. In 2018, the Heber Valley Railroad had acquired 3 new GP9 diesel locomotives, the #296, the #77, and the #52. With the arrival of the new locomotives, the #1813 was retired and is now on display at the Heber City Depot. On September 8, 2023, it left Heber Valley by truck, and was taken to The Coffee Depot for display in Mt. Pleasant, Utah.
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