Yes this where the 917 is going. hopefully everything related to the move will go well. Should be interesting.

Hi Everyone,
WDBJ7 TV has a video you can watch to see parts of the move of the 917
Here is the link,
http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=8643251

Enjoy
Andrew Martin

Please set me straight. I thought a locomotive boiler was not attached to the frame on the firebox end. So how it is that they can left this engine with straps only around the boiler shell?

The only RIGID connection. A sliding mechanism connects the firebox area to the rear of the frame loosely. Occasionally, thinner bits of steel plate were also installed at intermediate points, some of which were attached to the boiler and flxed in service, others merely supporting the barrel's weight without attachment. Unless I knew for a fact that the smokebox was not badly deteriorated and there wasn't any other way, I'd never lift by the boiler - always under the frame. If the smokebox was thin and tore loose, the slides could theoretically slide out and completely seperate boiler from frame.

dave

Now this locomotive has been removed, there is room for additional equipment to remove the remaining locomotives. A few months ago, we were all fretting about the inability to get the locomotives out. Given enough money, apparently someone has figured a way (albeit not the best way) to get into the yard or between the yard and the NS main.

Wasn't this particular locomotive the sole Consolidation in the string? I wonder if the display the purchaser is contemplating will include a tender of sorts?

Glad to see them moving at last. Having visited the string in 2001, I can assure readers, they will take no beauty prize, but I've seen worse in heavily vandalized park displays.

The Roanoke Times ran a follow-up article today, highlighting the Western Virginia Railroad Preservation Society's fundraising drive to try to rescue the remaining equipment from the yard.

http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/168901

N&W 917 has arrived at her new home in Ohio. One down, three to go...

105-year-old engine arrives in Bellville

Historic Steam Engine Part Of A Railroad Themed Diner

*ahem* FIVE to go :)

Not only that, but they seem to have figured out how to solve the apparently insolvable mystery of how much one of these things weigh and how big of a crane you'd need to lift.

Now that they've lifted one, they should have a pretty reasonable idea of the weight and what's required to lift them. That should help with the rest of them.

You have to wonder why everyone else was standing around saying "Can't be done... Never happen... Not Possible..." and then this fellow waltzes in and say "'Scuse me, I've got work to do..." and loads it up without making a big deal out of it. I like the "Git 'er done" approach.

I'd like to point out that this approach involved torching everything off the boiler including the steam dome and smokestack. Also, the engine is not headed for anything we would recognize as preservation. The engine will more or less continue to exist, but is it even going to be restored and presented as N&W 917?

It is headed to a new landlocked location and will be a part of a restaurant development. I know nothing about the new owner, but new restaurants are very much prone to failure, especially ones where lots of money has been spent on extraneous theming. I know that a number of cars and locomotives made there way into preservation via use in at a restaurant, but that is still kind of the exception isn't it? At least it won't be placed on a ferry on the Great Lakes I suppose.

Spin this as we might, I think this was a loss for preservation.

I wouldn't call it a "loss", but whether she's rebuilt as an N&W locomotive in the design of her service life, well, that will be the kicker. I think it would be simplistic to think she would have ever steamed again, so a quality cosmetic restoration might be all we could ever hope for. If she's painted red, with a balloon stack and wooden cow catcher, decked out in cheap, lightweight lanterns and bells, then yes, it's likely a loss - at least in the short term. As far as the guts of a steam locomotive is concerned, she's out of harm's way for the time being, and that goes in the positive column.

When the others come out, it will be interesting to see if they can be pieced together into a single functional locomotive.

I'm sure glad they DIDN"T pick it buy the spokes on the wheels when it got to Ohio. That was the orginal plan. The crane company was told that would not be in the best interest of safety. Seriously that's how they were told that's how they were going to do it.

I wasn't aware they'd torched things off, and I wasn't really addressing the locomotive's final disposition so much as the fact they found a way to get her out of the scrapyard while everybody else seems to be saying it can't be done...

As for the disposition, granted, turning her into a giant 3D billboard isn't the best, but it beats the hell out of the of the alternative, which apparently was making her into new Toyotas and/or Razor Blades.

It's my understanding, based only on what I've read, that none of those locos are exactly prime candidates for restoration. At least for now, avoiding having them cut up is what matters. Should you and the N&W preservation and restoration society later decide that you don't like her pulling Ronald's Caboose at the local McD's, at least the engine still exists so you can do something about it.

Also, I understand there are several others left, should you wish to preserve them in their proper paint schemes and/or restore them. Meanwhile, I'm cheering for anyone who gets them a reprieve from the torch.