The majority of the class N locomotives were scrapped between 1954 and 1957, but class N-1s 1223 and 1225 were both preserved. For the first part of its service life, 1225 was used to shuttle steel and wartime freight between Detroit, Saginaw, Flint and northern Indiana steel mills. After ten years of service, the engine was retired and sat in a scrap yard until 1957. Retirement and Gift to MSU (1951–1957) In 1955, Michigan State University Trustee, Forest Akers, the former VP of Dodge Motors, was asked by C&O Chairman Cyrus Eaton if the university would be interested in having a steam locomotive (Eaton did not want to scrap the engines but was having a hard time finding places that would accept them) so that engineering students would have a piece of real equipment to study. Akers proposed the idea to University President John Hannah, who accepted the gift of the locomotive. When he told the Dean of the College of Engineering about the gift, the Dean said that Engineering was not interested in an obsolete locomotive. John Hannah then called up Dr. Rollin Baker, director of the MSU Museum and told him that he was getting a locomotive. The C&O then instructed the yardmaster at New Buffalo to send an engine to the Wyoming Shops for a cosmetic restoration and repainting with the name Chesapeake and Ohio on the side. Lighted number boards were added as was the standard for C&O engines, though the Pere Marquette Railway never used them. Eventually, the Michigan State Trust for Railway Preservation, operating at the Steam Railway Institute, decided to remove these. No. 1225 was the last engine in the line, i.e. easiest to get out. Baker received the gift of the locomotive in June 1957 when it was brought to campus. The locomotive remained on static display near Spartan Stadium on the Michigan State campus in East Lansing, Michigan for more than a decade. While on display, a child by the name of Chris Van Allsburg used to stop by the locomotive on football weekends, on his way to the game with his father. He later stated that the engine was the inspiration for the story, Polar Express. Michigan State Railroad Club (1966–1976) During the time that Akers was alive, til 1966, money was allocated to paint and display the engine. In 1969, a group of MSU students formed the Michigan State