Illinois Central No. 333 is an 0-6-0 steam locomotive built in 1918 by Alco for the Illinois Central Railroad.
It spent most of its life as a switch engine on the I.C., until retirement in 1960, when it was sold to the Charles Black Sand & Gravel Co. at Fluker, LA.
In 1965, it was sold to J.P. Varnado at Baton Rouge, LA, until it was donated to the City of Baton Rouge for display in the science museum, located in the former IC depot. When that museum scaled down operations in 2000 owing to lack of money and the railroad equipment falling into disrepair, it was donated to the Tioga Heritage Museum in 2011.
Today the locomotive is a static display at the Tioga Heritage Park in Tioga, LA. It is presently in a rapidly deteriorating condition, made even worse with the fact that the Tioga museum had decided to close - the fate of locomotive 333 (present or future) is uncertain, typical of "preserved" steam locos sitting on plinths in parks across the USA, especially the mainline ones.
The only other surviving IC 0-6-0 is number 268 (built June 1914, and sold to Masonite Corp. in 1953 for further use), on display at Daphne Park, in Laurel, Mississippi. Although, as of 2020, the city finally managed to have a shelter built for it, the deterioration 268 had suffered until then was so extensive that gaping holes can be seen on the smokebox front end, rust everywhere, all over the engine and tender.