For many years, rumors of Jack Showalter's passing have circulated. For those not familiar, Jack owned the Alleghany Central that operated a several locations in Virginia and was the start of the Western Maryland in Cumberland, Md.
Jack passed away on November 12, 2014. He was living in Charlottesville at the time.
His oldest daughter and my wife were college dorm mates. I have no info on the railroad equipment at this time.

Someone should start a new steam tourist railroad in Virginia! Apart from Busch Gardens, Virginia currently has no operating steam railroads, until 611 starts running on NS next year. There are two CP 4-6-2 locomotives, and a bunch of coaches that were part of Jack's collection. They ran on the Western Maryland tourist line in the late 80's early 90's before 734 came in. CSX wanted too much for liability insurance so they scrapped the mainline trips in 1993 but I thought some ran? There are pictures of mainline trips with the two Virginia Central locomotives. That's why all the NS trips with 630 in Virginia so far were a rare thing, there are no regularly operating steam excursions in Virginia anywhere. Georgia, NC, SC, Alabama are other southern states without operating steam.

New Hope Valley RR runs a regularly scheduled steam operation in North Carolina, in the vicinity of Raleigh. I think if you come down next weekend you could take part.

NEVER start a posting with "Somebody should".....either you have something legitimate to contribute about how something could reasonably happen and what you are investing in the process, or your opinion about it is valueless.

dave