1944 Army film on railroad sabotage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agznZBiK_Bs&feature=emb_title

And the old steam just keeps rollin' along...

The film was shot on the Claiborne-Polk military RR west of Camp Claiborne, LA which was south of Alexandria, LA. The locomotive was former Norfolk and Western #4 which was fired up but not actually run for the tests. One of the Army Whitcomb's actually pushed the train over the hill and down a bit to get it started rolling, and the engine rolled with the reverse gear in top dead center.

#4 never shows up on any C-P rosters of active locomotives nor on any rosters of Army locomotives that I have ever found.

Interestingly enough, I believe that 3 of #4's sisters still survive. #6 is at VMT, and #7 and #11 are preserved elsewhere.

Long time lurker here, but I think I finally have some valuable info to add...

I don't think that is N&W #4

It is indeed an N&W G1, but I believe it is former N&W #301. Is seems the Army renumbered her #4.

A few pieces of evidence:
From my N&W book by Richard Prince he lists the full N&W roster and dispositions.

#4 is listed as scrapped by the N&W in May 1957
#301 however, is shown as being sold to the US Gov't in Jan 1944. It's the only locomotive that I can find as listed as sold to the Gov't in the whole roster.

Also at 4:14 in the video, there's a reasonably good closeup of the cast number plate on the smokebox, the quality is poor, but you can make out that there are 3 digits on the plate, and the shape of the numbers is consistent with 301.
I guess it's easy to paint the cab and put a 4 in the number boards, but they weren't going to recast a new plate for the smokebox.

The film titles say it was filmed in March 1944, so #301 hadn't been there long when they tried to derail her...

As for N&W 2-8-0's that still survive, G1 #6 is in Roanoke at VMT, #7 is in Bluefield, and W2 #917 was pulled from the VSI&M scrap yard without a tender and is on display now in Ohio. I believe that is all of them.

#11 was an 0-8-0T Shop Goat built from a W class 2-8-0 (#809), but was scrapped in 1958.

301 (and 4-7) were built by Baldwin in 1897 (Construction #15156). It was numbered 356 when new, renumbered to 204 in 1906 and finally to 301 in 1925.

4-7 have a an interesting history. They were numbered 203, 205, 200, & 201 (after the 1906 renumbering) when sold to the Va-Carolina Ry (first 2 in 1914, the other 2 in 1917). In 1921 the V-C became part of the N&W and the locos came back and were renumbered 4-7.

--Paul