I wish I had gotten down to see this operation.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 710&nseq=4

Tom,

Thanks for noting this photo. I was there once and saw the fleet of reefers being scrapped, but was unaware of any subsequent excursion operation.

Alan Maples

The equipment still existed just a few years ago, it has not operated since the FRA shut the operation down in the mid-late 90's. Nice sw-1, all original it would seem and converted Central of Georgia insulated boxcars for riding. Sometime circa 2003 someone went to the city and claimed they could get the operation going again AND restore the N&W 2-8-0 (built by the Roanoke Machine Works which later became the east end Roanoke Shops of the N&W...still had both builders plates) for some amount just under 200k if memory serves. This, of course, never happened and I was never able to find out if the city paid out dime one to the individual...and no, I don't know it was. They were excited about it, even had an account of all the tourist railroad plans on the website(again, back in '03)As a side note, the 2-8-0 was complete and did not look perticularly beat... The Rhode Island Locomotive works 0-6-0 is another story.

When rolling into town the welcome sign said " Welcome to Saltville, the salt capitol of the confederacy". Very proud of their history they are!

Well...I hate to be the bearer of bad news but most all the equipment is gone now. The rider cars are gone as well as the wonderful little SW-1, a scraper came in and torched it for nearly nothing, from what I remember it was in the ball park of $2K to $6K I don't remember for sure I just remember the town gave it away, it was nothing near what it was worth. The little SW-1 was in great shape I was with a group who went down there and we started it up in the late 1990's and ran one of the little Saltville Shifters around town and the yard, it was a clean and fine running little diesel. Shame the town dumped it for it's well less than scrap value. Would have been worth so much more whole or in parts at least, such a neat little six cylinder engine and it ran so good! I know some friends of mine would have bought and moved it if they knew it was that cheap what a loose. As fare as I know most everything is gone now, happened in the last 5 to 7 years.

The two Steamers are still there as mentioned and I think the wooden N&W Caboose is still there but everything else is gone. I do know of one group that tried to restart the line back in the mid to late 90's in hopes to reconnect the line to the out side world but due to a collapsing salt mine that undermined the rail line it was not pushed any further.

I do have a good number of pictures of the equipment that was there to include the steamers, SW-1 the rider cars and N&W Caboose, e-mail me if you would like to see any of them and I would be more than happy to e-mail them to you. In the mean time I'll try to get them posted so they can be placed here.