Came across this very interesting article on the above topic posted today in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/19/unprecedented-rain-hurricane-camilles-deadly-dlood-in-the-blue-ridge-mountains/

It has a railroad related photo, but in the comments to the article is a link to photos from Flicker:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/page1/

More railroad photos there, but one shows the tank from a Southern tender, with the engine number 1343 washed off in a ditch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/7797544338/

Figured some here might find these interesting.

Bob

Interesting that the tender has what appears to be all the steam-era lettering and in decent shape. That late, I would really like to know more about that!

Lee, The tender tank, from a Southern Ps-2 pacific, served as a storage tank for a local oil distributor. It was moved back to it's foundation after the flood, and was visible from Rt. 29 well into the 1990's. I'm not sure whether it is still around or not. The last time I was through Lovingston, about 3 years ago, it wasn't visible, but the trees & brush are much thicker along there than they used to be.

Someone in, I believe, a Yahoo Group I'm in posted a color photo of himself posed by the tank during this. Pretty neat, his caption had indicated that this was in Tye River, somewhat nearby. I had assumed this was perhaps a remnant of one of the wrecks there, but had no idea this was used at an oil facility.

I agree! This tender is definitely something worth looking into in the future, especially since all locomotives of this class have been scrapped!