Here's link to a pic off of the Fire Up 611 Facebook page of 290 at Norris

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

As to running hot don't forget her trailing truck after the initial rebuild ran hot too. Her inaugural trip to Macon was fouled by the trailing truck running hot.

I believe the trailing truck also ran hot on the trip it ran out of Jacksonville. 1991 or 92?

I never noticed that the 290 has NY cross compound pumps. Don't see them much in later days.

The Georgia RR/West Point Route was in love with them. The Central of Georgia had quite a few as well.

It went to Jacksonville twice. In 1990, they went down on CSX for the United Way kickoff. She pulled freight down and back and was on display, no actual trips. They really hauled the mail down on the "racetrack" in southwest Georgia, reportedly running upwards of 70 mph, but had to stop a few times for bearing issues also. The stoker also failed, close to home, IIRC. She also ran some NS trips out of Jacksonville in '91, not sure if the issues were completely gone by then or not.

I think the IC used them exclusively. I think the GN used them on smaller stuff, but nowadays I can't think of seeing them on a restored engine.

As Mr. Bensman will bear out: if a wire is used, it must be stretched from the center of the draw bar pin at the back and at the lead truck pivot pin in the front. Everything is squared from that wire i.e. Main pedestal faces (the side toward the front of the engine), then the Main Box Centers/Axle Centers are located; the other Drive Box Centers/Axle Centers are taken from the "Main" using the length of the centers of the "Brasses" on the connecting rods. Once the "Centers" are established, the dimension of each Driving Box can be measured and new "Shoes" made; shops typically kept rough machined ones on stock and did final machining after the measurements were known.

From the account of the 290, an "Optical Tooling Transit" was used not a surveying Transit; these instruments are deadly accurate in the correct hands!

1361 was done partially with a wire then checked with a surveying transit using the front face of the cylinders as a base line..........

Thanks,

Paul J.

Southern wanted to "convert" 290 to a Ps4 replica, which I thought would have been neat. The owners said "no". Too bad.

I just recently heard 290 had run these trips, I missed a chance on seeing her in steam.
A good friend of mine went to Fargo for the runby on one of those trips, expecting 611 and heard 290 over a scanner with no clue what was coming. Lucky guy, I never saw her in stem once.

The A&WP sued to prevent "their engine" from doing PR work for the Southern. The engine was, at the time, owned by the City of Atlanta. As part of the settlement, it was transferred to the Atlanta, NRHS.

There are several of us who would argue that it was a win for actual preservation that the engine was not allowed to be turned into a less-than-exact replica of something else.

This, and Canadian National 5288 at TVRM was also rumored as being an intended "PS-4 clone" for the SRR/NS program, but neither came to pass. 5288 has a very short tender, so I assume they'd have used something longer if that had worked out. Such a shame, I would have loved to seen either in green and gold. Afterwards, they'd have bene painted back to the right colors and markings, I'm sure...