Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis should be a real cool machine once they get her up and running as well. The NC&StL J-3 Dixies (there was no way a self-respecting southern railroad that went by the tagline of "The Dixie Line" would call a 4-8-4 a Northern) were fairly compact for a 4-8-4, but thoroughly modern, with nearly every appliance and advancement integrated into them. They were also an aesthetically unique engine, with the conical fairing on the headlamp, skirted running boards, the Ross-Meehan cast pilots that Southern lines were fond of, air pumps hidden on the pilot deck, the power reverser and air reservoirs hidden between the frame rails, and flanged stack. The Dixies are directly attributed to the war effort, during which the NC&StL saw drastically increased traffic.For example, they carried fewer than 500,000 passengers in 1939 but more than 800,000 in 1941, then 1.6 million in 1942 and 2.6 million in 1943. And on the freight end, they went from just over 1 billion tone-miles in 1939, to 2.1 billion in 1942, and more than 2.7 billion in both 1943 and 1944.

There's actually been a couple of attempts to restore #576 in the past. It was considered during the American Freedom Train planning, after it was determined that SP #4449 wasn't going to fit the clearances in the north east and they were scrambling to find an engine to handle that portion. It was determined to not be powerful enough and Ross Rowland picked Reading #2102 instead. Sometime around then, Southern also looked at it for addition to their corporate steam program but the city of Nashville was not willing to let it leave the city. Then in 1978, the Clinchfield was on the hunt for a bigger and more powerful engine than the One-Spot and settled on #576, since Clinchfield was part of Seaboard Systems/Family Lines and so was NC&StL parent company L&N. Again, attempts to restore it were thwarted by residents of Nashville, who didn't want their engine leaving the city.

When Clinchfield couldn't get their hands on NC&StL #576, they instead chose C&O Kanawha #2716 and had it moved to the shops at Erwin to restore to operation to take over from Clinchfield #1. It no sooner arrived and was evaluated and then Clinchfield president Tom Moore, the strongest proponent of the Clinchfield steam program, pled guilty to embezzlement and misappropriation of funds and resigned. With Moore gone, the steam program was ended, C&O #2716 was sent back to Kentucky, Clinchfield #1 was moved up to the B&O Railroad Museum, and Clinchfield was quickly and quietly integrated into Family Lines.

Apparently this is what I have to look forward to this weekend with NKP #765's trip over the Indiana Northeastern. I was admittedly not aware that they had put the Mars light back on #765. When they restored it to operation back in '79, they put it back to as-delivered appearance, which meant removing the Mars light. From what I understand, it made a couple appearances over the years, but at one point the motor stopped operating and they stopped using it. Looking at photos though, they've been using it for the past five years.

Had to stop for this one this morning. I've posted it before, but today's lighting, etc was photo worthy.

In reply to Recon1342 :

Wow!

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Thank you.

In reply to Recon1342 :

Very cool

On my way out to Montpelier today, I decided to swing by Bellevue, Ohio, where the Mad River & NKP Museum is located. For $10 it has a very large collection of equipment and structures packed onto a relatively tiny footprint. While I couldn't get photos of it, because of the way they had it located, they even have the very first dome car ever, Silver Dome, which was rebuilt from a standard stainless Budd car into a dome car in secret by CB&Q.

Indoors they had a Nickel Plate wooden caboose and a Wheeling & Lake Erie wooden caboose. An interesting fact is that the NKP caboose was built in 1882 while the W&LE caboose, which appears identical in construction, was built in '37. Crazy that there is a 55 year difference between the two.

An 18-ton diesel-mechanical Plymouth with a very rare two-bay hopper car. Not many two-bay hopper cars escaped the torch 

A Cleveland Electric Illuminating fireless 0-6-0

Milwaukee Road #745, a late-build Fairbanks-Morse H-12-44. By the time it was built, FM had dumped a lot of the Raymond Loewy styling flourishes present on early units, like the headlight casing and big awning over the back of the cab, in an effort to lower costs.

NKP GP30 #900. I love me some GP30s, and they looked great in NKP colors.

Norfolk & Western Alco RSD-12 #239. The RSD-12 was the 6-axle companion to the RS-11 and the competitor to the SD9 and SD18. They were famous for their lugging ability and N&W kept the #239 and it's siblings on the roster until '81. The museum has it set up so that you can get in the cab of #239.

The Nickel Plate's dynamometer car. I'm not sure how many dynamometer cars still exist, but I know it's not many. This is a really rare piece 

NKP's cabooses sure looked sharp in that black, white, and red. Hard to see in these photos, but the bottom caboose had "Lessor W&LE" markings on one end, a result of the NKP absorbing the W&LE

Baltimore & Ohio Alco S-4 switcher #9096. 

Gorgeously restored Wabash F7A #671. They also had this set up so you could go in the cab. I was surprised to see that the speedometer was built by Central Pneumatic when they were in Utica, NY.

A WWI troop sleeper, still equipped with those distinct Allied Full Cushion trucks. Later in life, those truck developed issues with cracking and many railroads banned them from interchange, resulting in lots of them being rebuilt on regular trucks.

A fascinating, and terrifying, piece of MoW equipment, a speeder with a sickle bar mower for trimming weeds along the right of way

The W&LE depot from Curtice, Ohio, relocated to the museum.

An N&W SD9, hooked to the N&W's old Industrial Machinery wrecker. The SD9 is in Pevler Blue. Herman Pevler, a brilliant railroad man, was the president of Wabash and introduced the simpler dark blue dip with yellow lettering on the Wabash. When Stuart Saunders left the N&W to run the PRR leading into the Penn Central merger, Pevler was moved from Wabash to N&W ahead of N&W's acquisition of Wabash and NKP. Pevler brought the "Pevler Blue" and yellow look to N&W. In hindsight, putting Pevler in charge of PRR and then pairing him with NYC's Alfred Perlmann during Penn Central would have been a much better move, as they both had the same lean, mean, stripped-down mentality to running a railroad.

One of the B&O's unique wagontop cabooses

In the process of being restored, an Alco S-5 acquired from North Star Steel/Cargill. Alco never offered a 244-powered switcher, going from the 539-powered 660hp S-1/S-3 and 1000hp S-2/S-4 to the 251-powered 800hp S-5. The S-5 was a sales flop, with only 7 being built and Boston & Maine the sole purchaser, making this one rare museum piece.