This was an April Fool Joke.

From TRAINS News Wire:

Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway to host revenue steam powered freight trains

Published: Thursday, April 1, 2010

Brewster, Oh. — Today Wheeling & Lake Erie Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry R. Parsons announced a partnership with The Age of Steam Ltd. to restore and operate former Bessemer & Lake Erie RR steam locomotive 643 in revenue freight operations.

B&LE 643, nicknamed, “The King”, a 2-10-4 1943 product of Baldwin Locomotive Works, was built to pull heavy coal and iron ore trains between Conneant, Ohio and North Bessemer, Pennsylvania. “643 will be right at home with our captive fleet of 70 ton hopper cars that move stone, taconite, coal and coke across northern Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia,” said Parsons.

This is an April Fool Joke

Located in Sugarcreek, Ohio, the Age of Steam Roundhouse, is owned by former short line owner and collector of steam locomotives Jerry Joe Jacobson and his wife. “After heavy snow this winter destroyed the warehouse where 643 had been stored for many years, we were able to strike a deal with 643’s owner, Glenn Campbell, to purchase the locomotive.” Campbell had long required that 643 be operated in the northern Pennsylvania/Ohio area.

Because 643 has been stored mostly inside since its retirement, and had major restoration done on its running gear by Diversified Rail Services in 1986-88, inspection to allow it to be certified under modern federal and state boiler regulations is expected to take a few months, but require no major repairs. The locomotive will undergo this work at the W&LE shop at Brewster, Oh. “The shop is ideal for working on this locomotive since steam locomotives were built there in the 1940’s and it is currently used to maintain and rebuild W&LE’s fleet of diesel-electric locomotives,” said Jacobson.

Future quarterly and annual maintenance on the locomotive will be conducted at the roundhouse in Sugarcreek, which is currently under construction. Rail access to the roundhouse will be through W&LE’s interchange, at Brewster, with the Genesee & Wyoming, which serves the roundhouse.

This is an April Fool's Joke

“This locomotive was built to do the same railroading we do today,” said Parsons. “It is quite similar in power as one or two of our current locomotives. Since the economic downturn has reduced the average size of our trains, 643 should be well matched to a number of our regularly operated freights”. A larger challenge may be scheduling 643 in since it has an over all slower running speed than diesels.

Parsons and Jacobson said they hope to schedule the steamer for four or five trips a week for two or three week periods at a time between maintenance and inspection periods. The locomotive will be based at Brewster. W&EL will lease the locomotive, but will share operating expenses, with Age of Steam employees and volunteers acting as crew and training W&EL crews in the operation of the locomotive. No plans at this time have been made to incorporate diesel locomotive controls in the cab of 643 to allow mixed power trains.

Jacobson also hinted success could lead to future double headed operations, perhaps with 2-8-4 ex-New York, Chicago & St. Louis RR 763, or 4-8-4 Grand Trunk Western 6325, both owned by Age of Steam.

Jacobson said, “This is extremely exciting. We chartered the Age of Steam Roundhouse project with the express purpose of demonstrating steam power pulling freight, and this fortunate match up will make our goal happen much sooner than we had planned. A generation raised on ipods and Facebook will be able to witness, first hand, the technology that was used to build this nation.”

This was an April Fool Joke.

You really don't know how much LRP loves steam, now do you? Nor do you realize what heated rivals he and JJJ were when JJJ owned the OC. That was a good one.

RAG

I hope this is real and not an April 1 rag.

If only it were so, I'd be getting my overalls ready!

if only..........

You have no idea how much I dislike this kind of April 1 nonsense.

I am the Webmaster for the Age of Steam Roundhouse project and I've already received a dozen emails asking if this is for real. Like I don't have anything better to do.

Just in case there is ANY doubt...this is NOT true.

And I stumbled upon engine 643 while railfanning in the Pittsburgh area on Wednesday, she was sitting there with a tarp covering her, nothing will be happening to her......... yet (one can only hope).

Ditto. It was funny once but now...not.

Gotta side with Rich on this one. The April Fools thing is played out as far as RYPN goes.

Rob

I kind of enjoy them, but I would suggest a minor change of revealing the spoof at the end. That way Sandy can show off his creative writing skills, yet nobody calls the 4449 crew asking if Amtrak really did lease the engine to provide steam heat for the Coast Starlight.

Our local TV station did a great show on the marshmallow harvest, though they seem to have overlooked the fact that the original marshmallows actually WERE made from plants. At the end of the show, they closed the story like they often do, adding "If you'd like more info on the marshmallow harvest..." At this point they usually say "you'll find a link on our website at..." but instead she said "...look at the date on the calendar, after all it is April Fools Day!" which I thought was a good way to remove any doubt about the story.

A similiar rule here would allow some of the fun to continue, while avoiding confusion. Still, I do realize that a lot of the fun is in seeing how many folks you can fool, but we have to consider whether that bit of fun is really worth the resulting confusion and misunderstandings?

The problem is that some of the real news sometimes sounds way to much like a joke. For example, how about a story I read last year, they were going to run 4449 all the way to Michigan for some train show. Boy, was that a real hoot! Had me rolling on the floor... What? They actually did? OH...

OK, obviously I know that was real, but you see what I mean. This story could, at least potentially, be legit. There's no easy way to disprove it. I can go to Wikipedia and find out that marshmallows don't grow on bushes, nor does spaghetti grow on trees, which is one of the most well know gags. That's a classic April Fools, it sounds plausible at first glance, but can easily be proven false. You can't do that with rumors like this one.

(PS - Yes, I know, they don't use steam heat on the Starlight, it was a joke...)

For the record, I had nothing to do with the original post of this thread.

Second, click here for an explanation of my April Fool's post policies:

http://www.rypn.org/user/LNER4472/you-see-if-you-fall-for-a-fake-URL-like-this-theres-no-hope-for-you.htm