The southern pacific 4449 to help with the Norfolk Southern 30th anniversary will be going to Atlanta Ga Then to Roanoke VA and Altoona Pa for a turn over horse shoe curve then to Chicago and Kansas city Mo. The locomotive will be painted similar the a Southern ps4 4-6-2. The money will go the the Norfolk & Western 611 restoration fund.

It's going to be a busy year what with 3751 going to the UK to sub for the not-ready Flying Scotsman and be fitted to burn propane for the first steam crossing of the Chunnel.

Steve

I removed my post because some people appeared to be offended.

Yawn... for April's Fools jokes to work, one must be convincing.

I about fell over when I read this. I thought we had this under some pretty tight security. I don't know what his source is but john 5614 got most of the details right. the route is actually through New Orleans (like the Worlds Fair Daylight in 1984) then on to Atlanta and northward. Two items he missed are that 4449 will not be repainted and the proceeds are going to be used to put another Southern locomotive into service. That particular locomotive is the one painted green and gold.

My concern is the color. Now are we talking Brunswick Green, or DGLE?

There is but one shade of green... Sylvan Green!

Could I get an Amen from my Southern Railway Brethern out there?

Amen from your "red" neighbors to the north.

Long ago I've had enough of the April 1 fake posts, but this got me thinking...
I know for real that SRR wanted to lease 4449 when they got their hands on it for a ferry move during the Freedom Train days. Does anyone know what they'd planned for a paint job if the city of Portland had agreed, or did it ever get that far?

I hadn't heard they talked about leasing, so I don't have any info.

I will note that the Royal Hudson was left in it's normal paint scheme while in excursion on SR. I suspect they may have done the same with the '49.

SRR wanting to use 4449 is reasonably well known in certain circles and Jim Wrinn’s book on the SRR/NS steam program talks about their experience running 4449 from Birmingham. As for paint, 4449 was still in the red/white/blue paint for the Freedom Train, I cannot imagine they would have wanted to keep it like that had SRR been able to lease it. Seeing what they eventually did with 2716, I can only imagine what kind of paint job they’d have done with the GS-4. You’d think they would have taken the standard Daylight paint and swapped the colors for green and gold (or green and cream with gold trim). I’d love to know what anyone at SRR was thinking in that regard.

Someone might have better details, but I recall that the owners of CPR 2839 had agreed to let SR repaint the engine in a different scheme. In teh meantime the lease was not renewed.

Wesley

I'm trying to remember, did they make some minor changes? Maybe put "Southern" lettering somewhere? But generally speaking no big changes.

just a reminder, when 4449 went to Oswego for railfest, it went thru chicago with its train, rather, the train went thru, but 4449 was routed around chicago because of clearance issues. 4449 is a bigger engine for use in the west trackage than the east, note engines were designed often for -their- railroad.
The 2-6-6-6 was a big engine but designed to fit on the shorter east turntables rather than a big boy.

One of N&W 4-8-0's M2c's was sold to another railroad, but didnt last, it just didnt perform to their needs. Scrapped.