Great news,

These two Rock Island E's have apparently found a new home in Manly, IA. See the following link. 630 is the only surviving E6. It was saved from scrapping in the 1970's when Rock President John Ingram set it aside and let a preservation group raise the funds to purchase her.

http://www.globegazette.com/articles/20 ... 348915.txt

Not to be too nitpicky, but the 630 is the last surviving Rock Island E-6, and the only E-6 that has potential to operate. The other suriving E-6 is Louisville and Nashville 770, originally 450B, part of the first two unit set of E-6s that were delivered to the L&N in 1942. It's only a shell now, the L&N used her prime movers and other equipment to re-engine Alco switchers.

This is interesting news, but thus far there is apparently no push to save the Manly roundhouse, which is the most intact of the few (three, I think, if the remaining stalls at Trenton, MO have been razed) remaining Rock Island roundhouses, with the turntable still intact. I believe it is used by an elevator for grain storage, with some of the center stalls removed to provide easier rail access to the elevator siding. The roundhouse was once 20 stalls, with about 16 remaining. The turntable controller, like most on the CRI&P, is open to the weather with no shanty, a design some genius (in a nice warm office) came up with long ago. The design was even written up in an old issue of Railway Mechanical Engineer as being progressive.

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_manly_rh.jpg
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_manly_tt.jpg
http://www.eldora.net/manly.html
http://eldora.net/lyndon/manly.html
http://faculty.simpson.edu/dick.tinder/ ... june3.html

I stand corrected about the 770. I keep remembering the campaign to save the 630 kept stressing that she was the last E6.

Point well taken.