In two weeks the Western Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society will be lifting up our ex B&O 250 ton steam wrecking derrick X-45 to remove the trucks to convert to roller bearing. The honor of doing the lifting will fall upon an ex N&W 250 ton diesel derrick. I'll have my camera ready to record this rare event, as I'm sure there aren't many occasions when one derrick will be lifting up another.<p>Once the X-45 gets her new wheels, or actually her "borrowed" wheels, she will be shipped to our facility, the Penn-Ohio Railway Museum, in New Castle, PA to join ex NYC diesel derrick X-14. The borrowed wheels will come from the X-14, which will temporarily become friction bearing equipped while the roller bearing wheelsets are under the X-45. <p>Now that our museum has two of the largest size of wrecking derricks manufactured, one steam and one diesel, museum management has been considering establishing a permanent exhibit about railroad derailments and their cleanup, and providing static and working displays of the techniques used in cleaning up train wrecks. Since both derricks will be operable, once we acquire additional land we will perform demonstrations of rerailing railcars on a regular basis, and possibly initiate a program where visitors could make arrangements to undergo training on how to operate the steam derrick, including boiler care and operation, basic rigging principles etc. Something similar to the "Engineer for an Hour" programs popular throughout the US.<p>At some point the WPRHS would like to augment our derrick exhibit with the addition of a four axle derrick of 100 to 150 ton capacity, preferably steam, to show the evolution of these machines throughout the years as locomotives and freight cars became larger and heavier.<br><br>



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