N&W historic steam engine escapes scrap

[NW Mailing List]

According to this article (http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/168901) VMT has written rights to the locomotives until the end of the year. If that's true, then I'd have to think that VMT gave the okay for this move. I also was curious why asbestos wasn't an issue. 

While I know everybody has their hearts in the right place, it seems like when moving these engines you can either move them, or move them correctly. I don't know alot about all this but I've read talk about "they should have greased this or that first", "they shouldn't have picked it up by the boiler", "what about asbestos", etc, etc. Personally, of course I'd like to see these under steam again, but they should be moved offsite first. A well-preserved cosmetic locomotive is better than a scrapped locomotive. 

Also, the engine was given to the guy from Bellville. He didn't purchase it.

Brian Dembinski
Sheffield Lake, Oh



----- Original Message ----
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 9:07:56 PM
Subject: Re: N&W historic steam engine escapes scrap

 
This appears to be another one of those cases 
where assumptions about plans to preserve certain significant items are 
discovered to be incorrect too late to save the items.  In 
this case, fortunately, the sale of the one locomotive has alerted us 
that the disposition of the remaining "lost locomotives" is far from 
settled.  And at least that one appears out of danger.
 
Everything I have seen in the Roanoke press, 
especially coming out of the Virginia Museum of Transportation, over the 
past few years has assured us that all this equipment is bound for 
the VMT.  It was just a matter of raising the funds to do the 
moving job, we were told.  (And the biggest expense was going to 
be asbestos abatement.  That didn't seem to be a problem the other 
day!)  Well, it appears that nobody bothered 
to check with the owners who were supposedly "donating" these items to the 
museum.  Who can blame them when someone is actually willing to pay 
something for what the owners consider to be scrap metal comes 
calling?
 
This happened repeatedly when I was on the VMT BOD 
back in the '90's.  We were repeatedly assured by people in a position to 
know that, first, the railroad and, later, Cycle Systems was donating the GP30 
#522 to the museum; we just had to make room for it.  And that yellow and 
black self-propelled rail geometry car that sat in Louis Scrap for several 
years?  Oh, nothing was going to happen to it; they were just keeping it 
for the museum.  Hmmm, wonder where they're keeping it now.  That's 
just a couple of examples.
 
At least the 522 has met a happy fate.  Cycle 
Systems sold it to the Roanoke Chapter, NRHS, and they have done a fantastic job 
of restoring it and running it.
 
I just wish we could have put together that 
representative collection of coal hoppers that were still available in the late 
'80's and early '90's, one each of an H9, H10, H2a, H16 and an unmodified 
H11.  Now all I hear is rumors that one or more of a couple of these 
classes are stashed away back in some hollow in West Virginia.  A wild 
goose chase is a poor substitute for the orderly assemblage of a historical 
collection.
 
Sam Putney
  
 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: NW  Mailing List 
To: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: N&W historic steam  engine escapes scrap

This demonstrates that if there is a will, there's a way!  Of  course these engines could be saved!  The only problem was, no one  with the clout wants to push the issue to get it done.
 
They should all be saved.  I think that if some private  individual wants to do it, then that's super!  If I had the money,  then I'd buy one as well and put it behind my house if nothing else!
 
Maybe some other folks will come out of the woodwork and buy the rest  of them up before the torch gets them.  Torching those old  locomotives would be beyond disgraceful.
 
Ben Blevins


--- On Tue, 7/8/08, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

From:  NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: N&W  historic steam engine escapes scrap
To: "NW Mailing List"  <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 7:04  AM


N&W historic steam engine escapes scrap
The 1903-built Norfolk & Western locomotive will be hauled away to Ohio.


http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/168637
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