Thanks to John Skiba for sending me a page from the metaverse, which contains the news that FEGUA #199, one of the last group of 2-8-2s built for the International Railways of Central America (Baldwin 1948), has been moved from the roundhouse in Zacapa to the town of Ipala as part of their effort to establish a railroad museum there. Besides the engine and tender, there is a 40 foot steel coach and an FIdeCA water tank. This town was near the famous series of eight loops on the line from Zacapa to the border with El Salvador, which was closed at least 35 years ago. The engine was moved on a three axle lowboy. She is the locomotive we were inspecting back in 2001 when our FVG steam crew was attacked by killer bees, resulting in my shattered left kneecap. Once upon a time this incident was described in an article I wrote for RyPN articles section, "There is NO Plan B".... #199 was also the last steam locomotive rebuilt in the backshops in Guatemala City, carrying a stenciled date of August, 1974.

This is really great news John and Sammy.

I remember seeing 199 in the back shop a few months earlier in 1974. With the slowdown in steam use by then, I figured that she'd never leave there.

However, the repairs were completed & she ended up being based at Zacapa on the Atlantic Division and operated a lot between Zacapa and Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.

A real bright spot to my mind.

.

Thanks to the wayback machine...

https://web.archive.org/web/20160324222553/http://rrdc.com/article_2001_gua_steam_no_plan_b_King.pdf

John Skiba

EDIT: Now with a working link!

Thanks for posting that link John !!! It's a complete surprise to me that it's out there, with a copyright in my name dated 2010, no less. RyPN copyrighted this in 2001, although my membership is currently listed as having begun in 2004...

One thing that got edited out of this article was a "low water incident", which I described in a reply to a thread by Matt Austin a few months back. Where the article says "somehow or another, we stayed awake", I was lying under orders from my superiors, if anybody wants to fill in the blanks. Otherwise, every word is true. In case anybody doubts me, please consider that I could never make up a story like that...