The thread on the lost locomotives of Roanoke got me to thinking. What pieces of railroad equipment - locomotives, passenger cars, or freight cars have been moved off of rails, away from the connected rail system and then restored and operated (and interchanged) on the nation's railroads. I know a fair number of trolleys have come back from being storage sheds, chicken coops, etc. but I am wondering how many standard railroad cars have been able to come back from the dead.

I believe N&W 475 is the prime candidate. She spent quite a bit of time in Hollsopple, Pa. (south of Johnstown), supposedly out in a field, before being passed around to the Illinois Ry. Museum and then the Boone & Scenic Valley before Strasburg got her.

I probably need not say much about West Va. Northern 2-8-0's 18 and 19 off in a field near Madley, Pa., although we have to wait until the West Va. RR Museum guys get one of them running before declaring victory.

Also in the "not yet there" category: a PCC car that the Baltimore Streetcar Museum brought in from New Mexico to replicate the other series of PCC cars Baltimore had.

Buffalo Creek & Gauley 13 supposedly spent some time around Somerset, Pa. in her wanderlust years, and I think I recall some of that being "out in a field" somewhere, though I could be wrong.

475 was originally in the same scrap yard as the "Lost Engines". The gentleman from Pa who purchased her was the only person to sucessfully buy any "railroad artifacts" from the owner of the yard.

Speaking of BC&G #13, does anyone know her current status? She was restored to service by the Ohio Central shops some time ago and did run out of Sugar Creek for a while I believe, before OC shut that operation down. With the apparent Ohio Central emphasis these days on bigger steam (NKP 763, GTW 6325, CP 1293), I wondered what OC's plans are for the Consol. She might be coming due for work.

Les

At the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum:

Took a steam locomotive (SP 2353) out of the park in Imperial Valley and ran her on her home rails again: http://www.psrm.org/roster/steam/s-2353/index.html

Took a caboose out of a construction lot, being used as an office, and ran her again: http://www.psrm.org/roster/caboose/cab1413/index.html

Pulled this coach out of a park, under restoration: http://www.psrm.org/roster/passenger/co ... index.html

Took the RPO car out of Houston, TX as a giftshop, restored her, won an award and had her carry mail again: http://www.psrm.org/roster/passenger/rpo74/index.html

Pulled this old Pullman private car out of a park (Del Mar), ran her to Campo on her own wheels and have started the long trail of restoration: http://www.psrm.org/roster/passenger/carriso/index.html

More success stories to come over the years.

Yosemite Valley observation car #330 comes to mind.

http://www.yv330.com/

Also Little River 4-6-2 #110, which sat stripped and abandoned in Tennessee for many years before returning to life. A sweetheart of a locomotive.

. . . Flagg Coal #75 might qualify too.

Steamtown's 3254, which was trucked in several pieces from it's display perch at a motel in Ashland, PA, to Gettysburg, reassembled, and returned to steam . . .

. . . the wooden New York elevated car that Sloan Cornell found in a field in Ohio - returned to service at Penn View Mountain and later Gettysburg, after mating the car body with a caboose frame and trucks . . .

Alan Maples

GATX 92835, an 8,042 gal. tank car, was donated to one of the trolley museum at Tansboro, N.J. before 1970. It was trucked more than a mile from the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines at Williamstown Jct., N.J. When the museum moved to Jobstown, N.J., the tank car was trucked back to live rail and moved on its own wheels to the New Hope & Ivyland RR. and stayed there.
Northampton & Bath cabooses 102 and 103, ex Lehigh & New England, were left behind in the Northampton engine house when the tracks were torn up. McHugh Bros. got 102, Sam Freeman got 103, and both were trucked to New Hope & Ivyland RR., where 103 stayed. 102 was renumbered NHIR 199, and moved on its own wheels to The Shore Fast Line and back, then to Tyburn Railroad. Recently, it was acquired by and trucked to the New Hope RR.
American Bridge [U.S.Steel], Trenton, N. J. #14, a General Electric 45 ton Diesel, was bough by McHugh Bros. after its original owner lost its rail connection. It was trucked to Penndel, Pa. for rebuilding about 1979, then trucked to the New Hope & Ivyland RR about 1981. About 1983, it was rented to the Newark, N.J. City Subway, which didn't have a railroad connection that year, so it was trucked both ways. Later, it was rented for about 5 years to a factory in North Philadelphia, Pa. that rented track in the Margie St. Yard. It moved both ways by itself on its own wheels, and in 1988, moved the same way to Tyburn Yard in Fairless, Pa. It's still working there for Tyburn Railroad.

One of the more heroic moves back to rail was IRM's rescue of Santa Fe 4-8-4 2903 from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Complete with tender, it was moved on its own wheels several blocks down the middle of a city street on snap track, around two right angle turns and up a ramp to the Illinois Central mainline, thence via permanent track 60 miles or so to Union.

In the freight car category, IRM has a neat tank car, Indian Refining 1277. See photo at link http://www.irm.org/gallery/IRCX1277/aae


The car was found as a shell on wheels only in a refinery largely dismantled in Lawrenceville, IL. It had been used in plant service WITHOUT air brakes, maybe since the early 1960's. It was trucked to a RESCAR facility in Washington, IN (now also gone I think) and then by truck to IRM where it has operated on our line.

Bob Kutella

There have been a number of these projects at RMNE over the years; a couple of notable ones:

A GATX tank car, built in 1911 and used in service until 1931, was found on disconnected track inside the old boiler house at the Cheney Brothers silk mill complex at South Manchester, CT, in 1983. The car had been used as fuel oil storage and had been inside since 1931. It was still clearly lettered for Cheney Brothers and had been renumbered by GATX to CHBX 5, and carried test dates from 1928. The K-brake system and arch bar trucks were complete. The car was donated to CVRM/RMNE and trucked out, as the boiler house was coming down (mill being converted to condos) and taken to Essex. It operated in a few of our Photo Freights in the 1985-87 era, with the brake system still functional. The car was trucked to RMNE's Naugatuck Railroad in 2006. It needs new wood running boards and a paint and letter job-- once it was out of the boiler house, the dried-out old paint washed off the car in two years at Essex. We do have tracings and photos....

In 1991, RMNE and VRR moved 6 Pullman heavyweight parlors and sleepers out of a back yard in Stonington, Ct, where they had been for 27 years, Jim Bradley had acquired the cars from the NYNH&H in 1962-64 and had them moved to his property overlooking the NYNH&H mainline and Long Island Sound. Jim died in 1989, and the cars were sold/donated to RMNE and one sold to VRR. After almost 50 days of on-site prep work in early 1991, the move commenced on Monday April 1, 1991, and by that Friday afternoon, all but one of the cars had moved 6 miles by road to Mystic, where they were put back on the rails. The old route into the property had been blocked by construction, so a new road and route had to be made through the area (and that was probably the easiest thing we had to do!). In July 1991, the four RMNE cars moved by rail about 80 miles to a storage location, at speeds up to 55 mph!!

The VRR parlor car, "Great Republic" was restored and placed in service by the mid-1990s. The four RMNE cars were stored in central Connecticut at a secure industrial site and were later moved to the Naugatuck Railroad. The sixth car (a parlor-obs in probably the roughest condition) was given by RMNE to a private owner in eastern Connecticut; he has it on his property and has been slowly working on it.

Howard P.
Over-The-Road, CT

I think that ex-D&RGW 463 2-8-2 fits here. Gene Autry had it at his ranch in California. It also has been operating on the C&TS recently. As I understand it it will be back in steam next year.

Also, How about Dan Markoff's Eureka? It had been in a fire and he rebuilt it himself with friends!

Doug vV

UP 2-8-0 No. 618 (currently celebrating her 100th birthday as O.S.L. NO.1068) was moved from the Utah State Fairgrounds in Salt Lake City in November 1970, utilizing compressed air and track panels. After connecting up with the Salt Lake, Garfield & Western, she was towed by Union Pacific to Provo, and then by the D&RGW to the Olmstead power plant, located at the mouth of Provo Canyon. There, she was fueled, watered and steamed up for a 2-day trip to Heber City (27 miles on abandoned track). The locomotive operated in regular and standby service on the Heber Creeper from 1971 to 1976, and then from 1986 to 1990, when the privately owned railroad closed.

Under Heber Valley Historic Railroad Authority ownership (i.e. State of Utah), the locomotive was re-tubed in 1995 and has operated in regular service since then.

Do steam locomotives in parks count. If so the list would include:

ATSF 3751
SP 4449
SP&S 700
NKP 765
GTW 6325
SP 2467 and 2472

There are others of course.

The 475 was not technically off live rail so far as I know. When I saw her she was sitting on the end of a siding on the B&O along with a B&O wooden caboose. In fact there was damage to the pony truck journals because a train crew had shoved a little to deep in the siding and unknowingly pulled the 475 out hauling it down the line. Imagine the suprise of the owner when the next day a freind ask where the engine was going when it went through town the night before. B&O brought the engine back and gave him some brasses to replace the damaged ones.

If engines rescued from scrap operations are included you could add:

Cass 1, 4, and 5
PRR 643
Reading 2100 and 2101

Again there are others.

John Bohon

Here's one:

Ex PRR 4662, 1929 Pullman built Gas Car now at the Wilmington & Western was pulled from the woods by the W&W and restored over a 14 year period, entering service in 1980....then later a mechanical rebuild and interior restoration was done in 1990 with a significant grant from the Revere Copper & Brass, giving it the name, "The Paul Revere".

It was bought from the PRR by a trolley operation in Maryland to use as a power source but was eventually abandoned and left to rot.

Canadian Pacific's 1896 business car # 23 at the Smiths Falls Railway Museum:

http://public.fotki.com/elliottd/sfrmeo/sfrmeo6/

Very little of this car's wooden structure was salvageable by the time we acquired it, but it is of sufficient local and regional importance to justiify the effort. It is one of very few Crossen Car Co. products still alive, and it was the Smiths Falls Subdivision Superintendent's car in later years.

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario