...Ok, so it's an eighth-scale version of Link's favorite locomotive. This working model, running on coal, was recently donated to us by Val Bragg in Toledo, Ohio. The model is 15 feet, and was built using N&W blueprints. The 1218 is on permanent display in the N&W Passenger Station Lobby/O. Winston Link Museum. One of Link's last wishes was that the 1218 be displayed at his museum - so we are glad to have a working eighth-scale model here!

Jim Humphrey of Mountain Car Company in Salem, Va., found out about the model and that Bragg was looking for a permanent home for it. Jim assisted the museum in both obtaining the 1218 AND cleaning/repainting it (along with assistants Doug Andre, Ken Miller and Richard Shell).

Link insisted on being photographed with the 1218 for the 2000 photoshoot for Vanity Fair Magazine here in Roanoke - NS brought the locomotive out from storage for this shoot. Of course, the full size 1218 is housed just down the street from the Link Museum at the Virginia Museum of Transportation!

www.linkmuseum.org