Orange Empire's Baldwin 2-6-2 Ventura County 2 returned to steam after down time for periodic inspection and repair. I was reminded of this while looking at photos from January of this year. Some of the reassembly had been completed, but the front of the smokebox was still awaiting re-installation. This gave us a chance to show visitors some of the "innards" of a steam engine rarely seen outside of a locomotive shop.

Although the work is slow and a learning process at Grapevine Vintage Railroad, work on ex Southern Pacific 2248 commenced in 2012 with the left cylinder being sleeved and everything put back together. Boiler work is now the main focus.

Ditto on what DanHetzel stated above. I would like to mention some other Colorado restorations that would have to include 346's new tender now in operation, DB&W/C&S/RGS 30/74 cosmetically restored and back together. It will be interesting to see what 2013 brings.

The Cumbres and Toltec saw an improved aesthetic applied to a few of it's cars using original fonts, WSL 9 at Georgetown went into service, the Silverton Northern has continued to move towards reality, Southern Railway 630 went on one of the biggest mainline steam tours on the east coast in 20 years, while the 844 ran multiple thousands of miles on the west side of the country. GSMR announced a return to steam, and IRM ran vintage equipment on the mainline.

For me good and bad came in the same project:

June: Good. We (The ALCO Historical & Technical Society) opened the ALCO Heritage Museum in Schenectady, NY after nearly two years of hard work, much to the public's delight.

October: Bad. Said museum closes due to lack of funding and poor plannig (some of us learned our lesson) with a frantic scramble to save and properly store our artifacts.

More Good: The Adirondack Scenic Railroad celebrates it's 20th anniversary with a new positive outlook for the future. Their Big Moose extention work finally got underway as well. Oh yeah, and Pullmans to Placid coming soon.

Scranton Transit "electromobile" #505 has been brought back home and funds are being raised for a full restoration. See ectma.org

In the realm of traction preservation, San Francisco Muni saw the return of a number of streetcars that had been sent to Brookville in Pennsylvania for "rehab". Muni 1 (Holman, 1912), their very first car, and 1040 (St Louis, 1952), the last PCC built in North America made their first charter runs in April, and 1006, 1008 and 1009 (St. Louis, 1948) double ended PCCs, a.k.a. Torpedoes, returned from Brookville. 1009 was a special case, because it had been severely vandalized and "looked like it had been through a war" before going back east. It's now back in the City, with a Dallas "tribute" paint job. 1006 and 1008 are in their "as built" Muni color schemes.

Restored McKeen motorcar No. 70 [V&T No. 22], in the collection of the State of Nevada, was listed as a National Historic Landmark by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on October 17, 2012; the only rail vehicle so recognized in 2012!

Peter Barton
Administrator
Nevada Division of Museums & History

The WW&F Ry Museum completed reconstruction of Dairy Car 65, ran a photo special mixed with it for one day, then transported the car to the Wiscasset waterfront the very next day for public display.

On the positive side, Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum saw in 2012:

1. GE 95-ton end cab diesel #11 finally being put into service on our tourist trains.

2. An additional concrete apron put in to the East Annex of the museum Shop building.

3. Repainting of EL caboose C345 done by Eagle Scout Paul Henderson (with family assistance).

4. Switch point repair undertaken by an outside contractor.

5. The ongoing restoration of Grasselli Tower including outside and inside painting and new window installation begun.

On the negative side, N&W wood tool car #550110 (ex-NKP #X50110) was broken up.


Les

On the freight car preservation front, the Central of Georgia Railway Historical Society, which until 2011 had never stepped into the realm of rolling stock preservation, finally began restoration of its CofGA 41-foot TCI-built flatcar. This is the last known survivor of the 100 cars built in 1925 in the series 10701-10800. The road number of this particular car remains a mystery.

The car had been donated by Georgia Power and moved by the Society to the Georgia State Railroad Museum in Savannah, GA in December 2011, but restoration work had to wait until the flatcar could be moved inside the coach shop.

The first work on the car since its move to Savannah was removal of the badly deteriorated oak deck boards. This was done during the Society's October 2012 annual membership meeting in Savannah.


Photo by Russell Lynn, CGRHS

Restoration will kick into high gear in the first quarter of 2013 with removal and restoration of the wood stringers plus work on the body.

Link to the CGRHS web site:

http://www.cofg.org/

As with all the in-progress preservation activities, completion of the flatcar restoration is contingent on having the money to pay for those things that in-house skills and sweat equity can't cover. Our web site is set up for tax-deductible donations to be made here using Paypal:
http://cofga.org/index.php?option=com_v ... 1&Itemid=2

We would appreciate your consideration of a donation in any amount to help offset the restoration costs.

Stephen -

Finding the original car number can be one of the great (and most aggravating) mysteries of rail preservation. I have had successes in finding old car numbers using the normal search methods, but also been stonewalled. Two cars here at HVRM are still not positively identified (an ex-IC caboose and ex-PRR flat car). I wish someone would come up with a magic device that would enable old metal to be scoped and the car number to magically appear! Oh well! Good luck with with your restoration and in eventually finding the CofGA number for your flat car. Since it is probably the last survivor of the series, not much chance of putting a number from the series on the car, only to have someone come along and tell you down the road sometime that "hey, that car is at xxxxxxxxx!"

Les

The whistle on WW&F 10 looked like something from a much larger engine. Is there a video with that whistle on the sound track? It reminded me of Rogue River Valley #1, a 12-ton 0-4-0T (Porter ca. 1891). Back in the 60's, the owners steamed her up after installing the whistle from a large main-line engine--when they sounded a "grade crossing" (LLSL) boiler pressure dropped five lbs.

The whistle on WW&F No. 9 in the video above is a copy of a three-chime CNJ whistle as used on CNJ No. 113. It was specially modified by its builder, Bernie Perch, to compensate for the smaller boiler capacity of No. 9. Bernie also patterned and built the whistle on No. 113, incidentally, after carefully measuring the only known surviving example. When the other Maine two-footer locos were in use at Edaville, they were fitted with chime whistles from scrapped Boston & Maine locomotives. No. 9 earlier carried a single note hooter, but most folks like the sound of the current whistle better.

The Texas State Railroad, under the new management of Iowa Pacific Holdings, returned former Texas & Pacific #316 to her original authentic colors and lettering. The 1901 Cooke 4-6-0 had spent over 30 years painted and lettered "Texas State Railroad 201"



We also adopted an new, historicly inspired herald


Earl Knoob.
GM, Texas State RR/Rusk Palestine & Pacific Ry