Was it really cost effective for Union Carbide to use these boilers?

We can never know the specifics of the decision to use the old N&W locos as boilers in Union Carbide's instance, but let's just say that if every long-range decision was cost-effective, there wouldn't be a thriving temporary labor industry in America today.

There are any number of possibilities present here--the three boilers costing $2,000 each as opposed to a new boiler of the same capacity costing $15,000; they thought they would only need a boiler for six months and it turned into five years; you name it. There's even the possibility that the hostler that fired the A boilers was non-union as opposed to union men demanding to fire a more permanent boiler installation.

In my region we have several life-expired power plants that have been sold from utility to utility, just squeaking out the last possible BTUs out of the facilities before the inevitable demolition/replacement. When one watches this stuff from a distance, the prospect of old steam locomotives providing auxillary steam becomes all too plausible and rational.

As a career power plant person I can say rental boilers and second hand boilers are big business. Boilers are something a plant would rather not have, many plants run boilers into the ground and then buy a used boiler or rent a boiler while repairs are made. Boilers are strictly overhead and many managers wont budget many dollars so anything can happen.

The old timers at the plant where I used to work told stories of PRR steam being used as rental boilers many times. Over the last 40 years as industries here in the Northeast closed down one by one dozens of boilers have been bought and sold and relocated from one plant to another.

Hi Everyone,
I got this off the N&W mailing list from Shawn Fields and Ken Miller.

Shawn Fields Wrote:
In 1959,when the N&W was retiring its steam fleet,Union Carbide was looking for something to provide emergency and peak load steam for its plant in South Charleston,WV. Assistant Plant Mgr. Dale Calhoun signed the order for 3 "scrap" steam locomotives,and N&W Class A's 1202, 1218 and 1230 were delivered.Offically the purchase was for scrap because Carbide could turn "scrap" into a stationary boiler-its operators were licensed for stationary boilers and not mobile steam boilers.
Carbide had no use for the tenders, and with space at a premium they were about to have them scrapped.Employee Phil Titus learned of this and prevailed upon a friend who was an assistant manager at FMC's South Charleston plant to store themon some spare trackage at the FMC Facility.
Union Carbide quickly moved the engines to Blaine Island in the middle of the Kanawha River and set them up adjacent to their powerhouse.The 3 Locomotives were lined up with their cabs close together so that one man could tend all 3 boilers; two were placed cab to cab with the 3rd on a parallel track with its cab next to the other two. A wooden platform was built so that the operator could walk between the cabs. Gas lines were run thru holes cut into the sides of the fireboxes, and steam pipes were connected thru the smokeboxes.
As stationary power plants, The A's were used whenever one of the powerhouse boilers had to be shut down or in the middle of winter when the weather was severely cold. In this capacity, they served Carbide very well for nearly 5 yrs. In 1964, however conditions changed and Carbide no longer needed the extra steam capacity. In June 1964 they were decomissioned and removed from the plant.Along with their tenders, they were again slated for scrap. At This point I became involved ( The Author ) and began to work with Phil Titus to try to find someone who could save at least one of the A's. I contacted F. Nelson Blount of Steamtown, and he made arrangements to buy an engine along with enough parts from the others to make one locomotive complete. He authorized Phil and me to select the locomotive and tender that were in the best condition and get them ready for transportation north.
The choice came down to which one needed the least number of parts from the others. The scrapper (Raleigh Junk Co.), who was in the process of cutting the other two into haulable scrap, generously lent the assistance of one of their cranes to move parts to the survivor; the 1218. Things like an airpump, front steam yokes, rods and gauges were cannibalized from the dying engines to make the 1218 as complete as possible. At that time, no one imagined that the 1218 would ever run again. By September 1964 the 1202 and 1230 were just a memory and the 1218 was ready for a trip to Bellows Falls.

I referenced a magazine in my library for this portion of the article....

The rest of the story can be found on pg. 45 of the Sept. 1987 issue of Railfan & Railroad Magazine and was written by George Greenacre.


Ken Miller wrote:

The Roanoke Transportation Museum
opened on Memorial Day weekend, 1963, as a city park. The 1218 did go
to Vermont to be displayed, I recall a photo in Trains Magazine in late
1967 or so with it in transit. Nelson Blount died in a small plane
crash on August 31, 1967. I don't know why there was such a delay of
movement to Steamtown. However, I suspect that it may have in a process
of negotiation between Roanoke City (read N&W) and Steamtown to return
it to Roanoke. To quote a Roanoke City News release about the arrival
of the 1218 back in Roanoke, dated March 7, 1969
"...the acquisition of this classic display item is the culmination of
four years of off-and-on negotiations of a charitable foundation in New
England which held title to the locomotive."

The 1218 arrived in Roanoke on March 6, 1969 after about a 2-3 week
move, and was spotted at the Roanoke Station for Bob Claytor, Bruce
Sterzing and some other officials to examine it. It was then moved to
the East End Shops where it underwent a cosmetic restoration, as time
permitted. It was first rolled out for public display, on May 1, 1971
at the Passenger Station while on the adjacent track Pocahontas arrived
and then departed behind NKP 759 for the last time.

George Greenacre and Phil Titus were the folks responsible for saving
the 1218 and getting in touch with Blount. They are to be commended to
this day. George died a number of years ago, I don't know about Phil.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks go to Shawn fields and Ken Miller for the information.
Andrew

George was one of the "founding fathers" of the Tourist Railway Association, Inc. (TRAIN) about 1972. A very pleasant fellow, and quite distinctive with 1860-style "muttonchop" sideburns!

The bit about 1218 being unveiled at Roanoke Station on the morning of 5/1/71, next to 759 is a new one to me-- I don't recall EVER seeing a photo of that. Or were all the prominent steam photographers of the day already up on Blue Ridge waiting for the Berkshire?

No photo but from Kenneth L. Miller's "Norfolk and Western Class J," pages 123 and 124:

I rode the last run of the "Pocahontas" as a teenager, boarding it east of Roanoke at my hometown of Bedford. I remember, and still have a copy somewhere, the "Roanoke Times" article about the last run, which had a photo of 1218 there at the station. Before then, we had gone past the 1218 many times on the way to my Grandmother's house as it sat outside East End Shops near "furnace crossing". After the 1218 was in Wasena Park, I visited it many times, and ended up working for the Roanoke Transportation Museum (now VMT) after it became independent from the city. I consider 1218 to be a "family heirloom", as my grandfather was a boilermaker at East End Shops when it was built. More recently, in 2002 and 2003, I put in several hundred volunteer hours on 1218 helping with the cosmetic restoration for it's return to display. And Howard, I think you are right. There seem to be a zillion pictures taken of 759 climbing Blue Ridge that day.

Anemic? Say who to what the heck?

I know those Virginny boys like thier whistles, but this is treasonous!

Rob

Dang right we Va gin'yans love our whistles, Rob. We need something strong to carry the sound through the mountains. A good steamboat or hooter does the trick. Them shrill damnyankee flatlander whistles just don't cut it down heah.................:)

I don't suppose anyone still has a copy of the image originally linked to in this thread. It appears the link no longer works.

Stopping by this thread tickled these old brain cells, and brought up a childhood memory that may have been the 1218, or maybe not. . .

I am from Wheeling, W.Va., originally, and my family's house in 1964 would have been the very last one on the last street in Wheeling, right at the border of the town of Benwood. Across the street from it was a former site for iron ore storage for the blast furnace and steel plant in Benwood, and on another side was the north throat and fan of a small yard there, which at that time was also being used for piggyback service with circus-style unloading. I remember blue and grey B&O diesels, and a passenger train that I got to ride on while in something like first grade or kindergarten--and yes, on that trip I got to see my family's house from the train.

All of this, including the house, is gone now.

Anyway, I remember seeing a long freight coming north, up the river, presumably headed to Pittsburgh. Looking back in the train, I saw a large, round shape, in a sort of medium grey (weathered black), along with a rectangular shape behind it in the same color. I thought, "Is that a steam engine?"

Well, I kept watching and watching, and this thing got closer, and IT WAS A STEAM ENGINE! Imagine how this was for someone between 6 and 9 years old, someone who already was a rail enthusiast, and who knew steam was gone, but had heard enough and read enough by that time to wish he could see them again! And not only that, but imagine seeing this one was a large articulated! I remember watching rods cycle around and around, and for some reason I keep thinking the eccentrics and main rods were up (for the longest time I was fascinated--and still am--at how the mains and eccentrics follow each other around, one looking like it's doing loops with the other), and of course with an articulated you get a double dose of this. How do you keep track of that stuff? I also do not recall any sound from this dead-in-tow locomotive, though that might have been masked by the general noise you got from a freight train on jointed rail.

Anyway, my age and the ability to remember this suggests this did take place about the time the 1218 would have been making its way to Vermont.

Now here's the fun question--did I see the 1218, or could it have been something else?

Does anybody know, or would be able to find, the routing of the 1218 from Charleston to Bellows Falls? And did that routing go west from Charleston and then north to Pittsburgh via Wheeling?

George Greenacre, indeed, was a great guy, and as Howard says, was involved in the founding of the Tourist Railroad Association, and also was often involved with the late John Killoran in rail activities throughout the Mountain State, including the C.P.Huntington Chapter of the NRHS and their various excursion trains. My memory is he worked for Union Carbide. He was a prolific photographer of all things rail. I had moved to Maryland, by the time of George's untimely death, but I wouldn't be surprised that there would be slides of the A's at Union Carbide in Charleston, somewhere in the collection, wherever it ended up...

G.F.Payne
B'more

Did it look anything like what is visible at far right of this picture? (There is a bit more if you view the image than shows in the post)

or Richard Glueck's posted picture (from 2004)

To be honest, this was so long ago I don't really remember. I can say the impression of the machine, when it first appeared, was much like the Steamtown photo (it's so far away, what is it?). I don't recall it looking as rusty as in the Steamtown shot, and for some reason I recall watching eccentric rods, but again, it was so long ago, my mind might be playing tricks on me.

I would have been maybe nine if the date is right. . .and it might have been earlier, and I might have been looking at a dead-in-tow EM1 for that matter.

Still, as we tickle those brain cells, it may have had only twelve drivers instead of sixteen. . .

If only someone had a waybill with the routing in the records somewhere. . .

Idle comment, but it seems like a terrible waste to have her sitting unused, considering how much was put into restoring her to operational condition.

I hope some railroad interest is listening.