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| The Crystal Ball | ||
| by Jim Wrinn 1 July 2000: | ||
| Here's the kind of report I like to see the Crystal Ball produce: For the third and fourth quarters of 2000, "new" steam--big, medium-sized and little will come on line. | ||
| Let's start the (crystal) ball rolling with the small: The 0-4-0T, No. 17, at Bonsal, N.C., just a few miles south of the state capital in Raleigh. The good folks at the East Carolina Chapter NRHS purchased this one from the now-defunct West Virginia Northern last November (see the SteamCentral archive) and have been steadily working away at the engine. Originally set for a July 4 debut, the engine will be out sometime in either August or September. )Always remember folks, steam is worth waiting for, and the longer the wait, the better the result.) | ||
| Moving to the middle weight group, we focus attention on the great states of Tennessee and Colorado, where two lines are each debuting Baldwin-built engines of the class of 1925. In Knoxville, former Rockton & Rion Consolidation No. 203 is nearing completion. A real boomer, this engine, in the last 23 years has gone from South Carolina to Florida to Mississippi, back to South Carolina, then Kentucky and now Tennessee. Expect to see her debut sometime later this summer on Knoxville-based Gulf and Ohio Railways' Three Rivers Rambler operation along the riverfront. | ||
| Colorado's Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad expects to return former Denver & Rio Grande Mikado No. 486 to service the last weekend in August. This locomotive ran on the line to and from Durango from 1925 through the early 1960s; then it was placed on display at the entrance to the Royal Gorge Park. In 1999, the D&S traded another non-operational engine, No. 499, to the park and trucked 486 back to the shop. The celebration is set for 8:30 a.m. Aug. 25 at the Durango depot during the line's annual Railfest open house. | ||
| Going to the big end of the stick, we turn to everybody's favorite non-UP, non-BNSF and non-CP mainline steam program: Ohio Central. The railroad's Jason Johnson reports that former Grand Trunk Western No. 6325, a husky 4-8-4, is coming along. The wheels, sent to Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's shop in Chattanooga, were expected to be back around the first part of July. "We still hope to fire it up this Fall but it will be fourth quarter before you see it pull a train,'' Johnson tells us. Trips using ex-Canadian National 4-6-0 No. 1551 have kept the line's steam crews busy. A lull now returns them to the big engine. (Remember about being patient.) | ||
| Speaking of Chattanooga, it appears that TVRM crews, after doing some evaluation work on ex-SR 2-8-0 No. 630 and ex-Kentucky & Tennessee 2-8-2 No. 10, to determine which would be the next into he shop, have decided to turn their attention to the Southern engine. A look into the East Chattanooga shop in late June showed much disassembly work taking place on the Consolidation that worked as part of Southern's steam excursions between 1968 and 1978 before going on long-term loan to TVRM and finally into TVRM's ownership last year. This is certainly good news for Southern fans. Now if the folks at Great Smoky Mountains Railway are successful in obtaining and restoring 2-8-0 No. 722 and my own comrades at N.C. Transportation Museum & Foundation are successful in restoring 2-8-0 No. 542 at Spencer (patiently awaiting a trip to the shop for evaluation while the focus is on saving the Back Shop building), here's a thought: Recreating the Goose, the famous Murphy Branch freight that required two Consolidations up front and one pushing to make it over the grade at Topton. | ||
| That, of course, is nothing more than a pleasant dream, so let's snap out of it with a controversy. Last spring, the CB infuriated Nebraskans and many others by insinuating that Nebraska is steamless. Not only did UP steam chief Steve Lee correctly point out that his railroad still runs to Nebraska, but he also added that the company's Challenger No. 3985, the biggest engine operating in the land, was headed in that direction for a visit in June. Another reader folks pointed out another, less well-known line. Jonathan Smith tells CB that steam lives at the Omaha Zoo's 30-inch gauge railroad. OK, one of the engines is a 5/8-size Crown Metal Products replica of UP 119, built in 1969. The CB salutes Crown's products and recognizes their contribution to keeping park engines alive, but that's not really the focus of this column or web site (right John?). (You got yourself into this, Jimbo . . . need a shovel? And for the record, I like the Goose idea a LOT. JAC) The Crown engine's stablemate is a little more interesting. It's an 0-6-2T built by Krauss in their Linz, Austria factory in 1890, works number 2360. Said Smith: "It is a standard Austrian narrow gauge locomotive, class U. The Hungarian classification was class 395, and the Rumanians just took over the Hungarian number 395-104.'' The engine was purchased in 1969. Well, anybody with a 110-year-old Austrian job in their back yard can't be bad. Nebraska, you're OK! | ||
| Jim Wrinn, who's STILL older than your webmaster, writes this exclusive column quarterly for Steam Central. He is a staff writer for The Charlotte Observer, a volunteer for the N.C. Transportation Museum and recently returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed rides at the Chehalis-Centralia and Sumpter Valley and got to see former Southern Pacific No. 4449 fade to black. His suggestion for the Daylight's new name: The Darklight. You can reach him at crystalball@steamcentral.com. | ||
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