The #1500 on the TP&W at Lognasport, Indiana in the summer of 1996. It was coupled onto the rear of the trips run over the TP&W by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society in the summer of 1996 with C&O 2-8-4 #2716, both as protection power for if the #2716 broke down and to tow the train back to Logansport after it ran to just west of Burnettsville.
C&O #2716 ran exactly four trips over the TP&W in the summer of 1996. A lot of people, including the FWRHS hoped that those would be the start of something more, but those ended up being it for the #2716. That C&O Kanawha has probably been the biggest hard-luck case when it comes to mainline excursion steam locomotives. It had been moved to Clinchfield's shops in 1976 to be restored for a corporate excursion program at the behest of president Tom Moore, only for the program, and the Clinchfield's independent identity within Seaboard Systems/Family Lines, to come to an abrupt end when Moore was fired over embezzlement charges.
The partially-disassembled 2-8-4 was sent back to Kentucky Railway Museum, only to be leased by Southern Railway in 1980 so that it could be restored and run in their corporate steam program, which needed faster and more powerful steam locomotives than what they had available. The #2716 was restored at the Southern's steam shops in Irondale, Alabama, although it's restoration was delayed by Southern #4501 cracking the front flue sheet, and entered service disguised as a fictional Southern 2-8-4 (Southern never owned any Berkshires, or even any engines with two-axle trailing trucks) mid-October of 1981, later than hoped. It ran a handful of excursions that year, then came back out in the spring of '82 for a few more, only for the firebox to start to develop some really nasty cracks. Southern ended up leasing NKP #765 to fill in for the rest of the season, and even paid for some fairly expensive repairs (refurbishment of both trailing truck axles) to ensure #765 could complete the season without major issues. With the NS merger impending, and Norfolk & Western just having gotten N&W #611 up and running, the decision was made not to repair the #2716. It was moved back to Irondale and stored there until 1994, when NS shut down the steam program and began selling off everything.
Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society had taken the #765 out of service the year before to perform a major overhaul and needed something that they could get in operation quick to be able to keep running trips and generate money to overhaul the #765. The #2716 was big, powerful and fast, and had flues in it with less than 60 days of run time. The running gear was reported to be in pretty good shape, as were the wheels and tires, although the spring rigging was a little tired. FWRHS struck a deal, had the #2716 moved up to their property, welded up the crack and restored it back to C&O appearance. In the summer of 1996 she was towed by a reluctant Norfolk Southern to Logansport, Indiana and delivered to the Toledo, Peoria & Western. There she made a break-in run on the head end of a TP&W freight out to Gilman, Illinois, turned in the middle of the night, and returned to Logansport the next morning.
It then ran four trips over the TP&W from Logansport to Burnettsville and back that summer. As some railfans lament, they figured it was a trial run for bigger and better things, so they sat on the side lines until later. The #2716 was moved back to New Haven to have some more work done over the winter, mostly on the spring rigging, since one corner sat four inches lower than the rest. The flues, although having very few run days on them, were approaching 15 years old, but at the time you could file for a flue extension with the FRA. An FRA inspector would come out, have a couple random flues pulled, inspect them, and if they were in good enough shape you would get a one year extension. With such little time on them, the FWRHS guys had hoped to be able to get a couple years worth of extensions. But Gettysburg Railroad had had their nasty crown sheet failure on CPR #2178 the summer before, and the FRA was rewriting the rules on steam locomotive operation, which would eventually get rid of flue extensions, and the inspector that came out wanted to be ahead of the curve and would not approve a routine, and still-legal, extension. Torn between continuing the overhaul of #765, the locomotive the group was known for, or performing a 1472 on the #2716, the decision was made to park the #2716 and it hasn't turned a wheel under it's own power since.
The #2716 backing down past a PRR position light signal on the TP&W at Logansport in the summer of 1996, during her extremely short career.
Crossing the Wabash River on it's way out of Logansport.
NKP #765 had actually done a pretty convincing stint as "C&O #2765" during it's last operating season of it's original overhaul (1993), disguised as a C&O Kanawha for hauling the New River Gorge Trains on CSX's ex-C&O line.
The pilot is really the only giveaway that this is not a C&O Kanawha, and you have to be really familiar with the engines to notice that. Of course, the C&O K-4s and NKP S thru S-3 Berkshires, as well as the Erie S-1 thru S-4s, Pere Marquette N thru N-2s, and Wheeling & Lake Erie K-1s were all very closely related. The lines were all under the control of the Van Sweringen Brothers, and after the Erie S-series Berkshires became a success, they took the design and scaled it up to the T-1 2-10-4 for the C&O, and then took the T-1 and reversed the process to result in the 2-8-4s built for NKP, W&LE, PM and C&O.
The #2716 in her Southern Railway disguise.
The #2716 also did a stint where it was dressed up as Louisville & Nashville M-1 "Big Emma" #1992. This was just while it was a display piece at Kentucky Railway Museum, after it was retired by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.
I'm kind of surprised that with the sheer amount of C&O 2-8-4s in preservation, one has never been done up, even temporarily as one of the Virginian Railway class BA 2-8-4s. Virginian, in their later years of steam operation, began simply ordering C&O designs, despite the Virginian and C&O having no corporate ties. This resulted in these Berkshires that were near-identical (the steam dome was between the stack and sand dome rather than incorporated as one, and there was a difference in the tender bunkers), as well as a handful of 2-6-6-6s that were identical to C&O Alleghenies. This photo shows the #507, all cleaned up and parked alongside a big EL-2b electric at the Virginian's Roanoke facilities in 1957, which was hosting the 1957 NRHS convention. The story I've heard is that Virginian had set aside the #507, an old teakettle of a Pacific (there are photos of an equally shined up 4-6-2 #212 at the same event), and one or two 2-6-6-6s for preservation, only for an 11th hour management change in the lead-up to the N&W/VGN merger resulting in an order to scrap them all.
One of the Virginian 2-6-6-6s, which they called a Blue Ridge and not an Allegheny, at that same NRHS convention. You can just see the nose of the EL-2b electric in the above photo at the extreme lower right of the photo. My guess is that #903 was one of the ones rumored to be set aside for preservation.
The #212, also supposedly slated for preservation. It was posed with a coach and a combine for this shot taken at the 1957 NRHS convention, which were the last passenger cars on the property, since Virginian, never a big passenger hauler, had ceased passenger service in 1956.
Virginian was noteworthy for operating a fleet of 2-10-10-2s. Yes, you read that right. They owned an even ten of these monstrous compound articulated locomotives, built in 1918 and serving until 1952. They were so large that they had to be shipped from Alco to Roanoke in several pieces and assembled on-site, and the 48" diameter low pressure cylinders were the largest ever used on a US locomotive. These were low-speed locomotives, being capable of a sustained speed of only 8mph, and generated 135,170lbs of tractive effort. They were paired with an oddl stubby tender as a matter of necessity; the tender had to be that short to allow the locomotive to fit existing turntables and roundhouses.
Otto Conrad Perry caught a rather rare action photo of one of the big 2-10-10-2s, class AE, thumping across the diamonds at Roanoke, with a brakemen riding on the pilot. The Virginian ran through much more remote territory than the neighboring C&O and N&W, and so remained relatively unphotographed for most of it's existence. The big 2-10-10-2s also seemed to be particularly camera-shy and this is the only action photo I've ever seen of them. It's also odd to see a photo from this far east by Otto Perry, who lived in Colorado and did most of his photography in the southwest.
I saw that a group was offering a photo charter at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in April, promising doubleheaded steam (2-8-0 #630 and 2-8-2 #4501), rare mileage, and photo freights.
I was really interested and considering buying a ticket and then went "Wait, you don't want to spend $400 and drive to Maine in February, so do you really want to spend $625 and fly/drive to Chattanooga in April?" Too soon before the race season, and that'll be when I need to be putting a top and transmission on the MR2 Spyder. So, sadly, my rational side won out. But I do really want to get down to TVRM, and the rumor that I heard was "if you want to see #4501, best to get down there sooner rather than later". From what that person was saying, #4501 is really too large for what TVRM is doing, and is more expensive to maintain and operate than the #630, and that once it comes due for an overhaul, they might park it. They restored it back in 2014, when Wick Moorman was in charge at NS and had revived corporate excursions with the 21st Century Steam program. They got it up and running just in time for Wick Moorman to leave and his successor to cancel the program in 2015 (same thing happened with N&W #611 as well)
I would like to get back down to the Tail Of The Dragon, so maybe that should be the plan for the future; take the MR2 Spyder, hit The Tail Of The Dragon on a weekday, and then head to Chattanooga and spend a day, or the weekend, at TVRM. Great Smokey Mountain Railroad also isn't that far away from the Tail Of The Dragon. Looking at a map, it seems the most efficient route is Home-TVRM-GSMR-Tail Of The Dragon-Home.
The other option is to go see Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis #576 once it gets running, while I'm "in the area". Which would work out to Home-Nashville-TVRM-Tail Of The Dragon-Home. That actually only adds 40 more miles to the trip, although it wildly varies the route, coming down through Kentucky and Ohio and then going north through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsvlvania.
That's terrifying.
In reply to Duke :
Crumlin Viaduct in England, which was the tallest bridge in the U.K. Not quite as long or as tall as the Kinzua Bridge in Kane, PA. You could ride across the Kinzua Bridge behind steam power as late as '02 on the Knox & Kane Railroad. But then it blew down in a tornado in '03, and that pretty much killed the K&K. The 2000' long, 300' tall bridge was kind of their selling point, and once they lost that they saw a 75% drop in ridership in a year's time and closed down. Too bad, because they had installed a turntable, built a 4-stall roundhouse, shipped over a steam locomotive from China, and begun a restoration on Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain 2-8-0 #38. In 2006 they suspended operations, and then in 2008, someone set fire to their engine house and damaged the locomotives and destroyed a bunch of passenger cars. What was left was sold off and the tracks were yanked up.
In reply to NickD :
In the summer of 1996 I was dating a girl from Watseka, IL on the TP&W line. I'm surprised I never heard about #2716 passing through, let alone saw it in person.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Well, they were only running 13 miles west from Logansport, and those 4 trips were all on one weekend, then it went back to Fort Wayne, IN. The only time it would have went through Watseka was an unannounced freight run at night
In reply to NickD :
The Kinzua bridge looks a lot more stable, even if it is taller. It's a shame it went down, but I imagine it was a maintenance nightmare.
Somewhere in Siberia:
Probably didn't run when parked, or it wouldn't have been parked there:
Duke said:In reply to NickD :
The Kinzua bridge looks a lot more stable, even if it is taller. It's a shame it went down, but I imagine it was a maintenance nightmare.
The original Kinzua Viaduct was a wrought-iron structure built in 1882, but in 1900 they simultaneously tore it down and rebuilt it out of steel.
It was taken out of service in 1959 and then sold to Kovalchick Salvage Company. I've mentioned Kovalchick before, this is the guy that saved the entirety of the East Broad Top after it was closed down in 1956 and sold to his scrap company. Similar to EBT, Kovalchick was reluctant to scrap Kinzua, and, on seeing it for the first time he is supposed to have said "There will never be another bridge like this." He convinced Pennsylvania to buy it and make it into a park. During 2002, even before it's collapse, the Kinzua Bridge had been closed to all recreational pedestrian and railroad usage after it was determined that the structure was at risk due to high winds. Engineers had determined that during high winds, the bridge's center of gravity could shift, putting weight onto only one side of the bridge overloading portions of the structure. Pennsylvania had contracted an Ohio-based company to restore and upgrade the structure but then the tornado hit and knocked down a good chunk of it, with the failure traced to badly rusted iron base bolts holding the bases of the towers to concrete anchor blocks embedded into the ground. The cost to rebuild the bridge was $45 million, which PA wasn't willing to shell out, so the bridge was trimmed back to a good section and converted to a walkway.
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