I can say, empathetically, as I was around when W&W sold that loco, "no." The decision to de-accession 14 was made before the director was hired, as I recall.

My question, facetious as it was, was not related to why the W&W sold that loco when they did. My question is, why did Gaithersburg or its powers that be decide on that loco, which has nothing to do with Gaithersburg or Maryland. For all we know, they could have ended up with one of the Wanamie saddletankers, or a GTW 0-8-0!

Wesley

Steve,

Would you happen to have photos of the steam crane and other items in the 2nd scrap yard?

Thanks

Brian C.

Everyone, Sorry I can't post pictures directly to RYPN right now as two factors come into play, 1st the last service I was using to host my pictures online conked out on me and 2nd I'm currently using dial-up service with my computer and it's not working very well at all with this site.

So I hate to do this but I would be more than happy to share any pictures you all would like to see if you e-mail me directly, I have pictures of most everything in the area available "Lost Engines", Steam Crane, Steam era hoppers moved from the scrap yard, and most everything else in the Valley has been recorded and is part of over 200gigs of Digital images available. Heck I've even gone back and scanned and digitized all my photo's from the last 20 years and I now have them available to post or e-mail…If anyone has any ideas on how I could make all or a large portion my images available on-line please offer your suggestions, my efforts up till now haven’t worked very well and I’m just short of starting my own web image hosting page.

Contact me at: PullmanPolo(at)Hotmail.com

> If anyone has any ideas on how I could make all or a
> large portion my images available on-line please offer
> your suggestions

Mail a CD to me, with the photos and applicable descriptions, and I'll post them on RailroadForums.com for you, giving you credit as the photographer/contributor of course.

The photo gallery there is visible to anyone, no membership needed, and that would allow anyone with web access to view the images.

Where exactly are these locomotives in Roanoke? Last time I was in Roanoke I didn't even know these engines were real, so I didn't search productively. Are they near the burned out train station?
I'd like to try to find em on satellite photos, but need a location.

I was living in the Gaithersburg area at the time #14 was acquired in the 1980's. The town fathers had just finished restoring the train station, and wanted a display locomotive. As all of us know well, by the 1980's there were no spare B&O steam locomotives to be had. #14 was available and relatively nearby so she ended up in Gaithersburg. At the time the wye which had been used to used steam helpers was still in place if somewhat overgrown. Some local preservationists wanted it preserved, but the land was just too valuable, and it was lost to development.

Seriously, look right alongside the NS main line.

That is somewhat of an unproductive, not useful answer, as there are "NS main lines" all over town!

To be a little more useful, I'll note that the scrapyard/locos are located along NS's former N&W line south to Winston-Salem (the so-called "Pumpkin Vine" or "Punkin"), south of the wye at the Roanoke Shops and north of "JK", the junction with the ex-Virginian near the aforementioned burned VGN depot. If you're using Google Earth, that should be enough for you. Look along the west side of the track.

The Roanoke/Winston-Salem line is called the Punkin Vine. The line from Portsmouth to Cincinnati is the Peavine. Same type of alignment (curves, grades), different plant. The rest of the location description is accurate. Now is the only time of year the locos can be seen from the park across the creek - no leaves.

They are at Virginia Scrap Iron and Metal on South Jefferson Street. If you have Microsoft "Virtual Earth" installed on your computer you can actually see a birds eye view of them. The resolution is way too low for Roanoke in Google Earth.

Hmm, from what people said and photo evidence on the railfan.net site, I'm guessing ... here?

http://maps.yahoo.com/#lon=-79.940724&l ... 6959&mag=1

(south of Walnut Ave SE, about where the single-track NS and Piedmont Ave SE come closest to each other?)