WOW! Way to go, VMT!

(ps: I would have loved to have a few of those stoves, rats!)

I think they might have torched the axle out of the wheels. There were definitely a couple that had tires. As my dad pointed there are torch marks in the outer wring from where the torch cut too far. I might be wrong about the axles though, does anyone know if the N&W stored drivers with the tires already on? That would lead to why the hole for the axles do not seem to have any torch marks in them. I cant imagine a scrapping company would spend the time to heat the drivers up to remove them from the axle! (is that how you would go about removing drivers from axles?)

To answer your question about the wheels, there were I'm sure some new old stock drivers there, but most where used drivers that had been cut away from the axles. See images showing the cut drive axle as well on some the cover plate over the lead counter weight had been cut off exposing the lead field counter weight on the drivers. Most of the wheels had had their drive tires cut from them back in the day as soon as they arrived at the scrap yard for the good steel on the tire, axles were taken too, but the cast wheels that contained lead stayed around for quite some time.

You would think they'd get the lead out! (sorry, couldn't resist...)

The way the drivers are set up along the downtown rail walk is really fine.

Howard P.

Are most driving wheel counter weights lead? I just assumed they were cast solid.

Thanks,

Bob

When the actual balancing was done, lead placed/poured into a pocket (the counterbalance area was hollow) was "adjustable", much like the clip-on wheel rim weights used for balancing auto tires.

Howard P.

The pictures and video are great.
I see four axles on the front of the trailer, how many were on the back of the trailer?
Any pictures of the whole rig loaded with the crane and on the road?

Here are some views of the Crane shortly after it was loaded, and while it was still parked on the land of the Virginia Scrap Iron & Metal Co. In these views you can see that the trailer at this point only had three axles totaling 12 tires! After a short rainy period through the holidays and the trailer sat in the mud finely the crane was moved off the site of the former scrap yard and into an area where time could be taken to regroup. Shortly after the New Year a fourth axle was added to the trailer and the crane better centered to disperse the weight. As well during this time a grade grossing had to be modified to accept the long low trailer, as the crossing was a high humped crossing over the former VGN Main and a siding. This siding is currently the high volume east bound coal line for Norfolk Southern. Coordination was made with Norfolk Southern / Roanoke Dispatchers to co-ordinate the move between a reasonable window between east bound coal trains. After both sides of the crossing were raised with pavement type material and providing a gradual grade up and over the crossing did the move proceed across and to the nearby unloading point onto an active siding. Again below are images of the crane loaded before it started it journey via rubber tires back to live rail.

For those who would like to see just where the crane was and where it went in its short but complicated move, see the two URL's below that will take your to Google maps where one view has the Cranes starting point shown and the fact that the land was well on its way to being remediated around it and time was short. The second view shows the point it was unloaded and placed on live rail. The two track grade crossing between the two points is the one that had to be modified to allow movement.

Point where crane was loaded, (In this view the crane is still there!)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.273246,-79.989417&hl=en&ll=37.273348,-79.989433&spn=0.003291,0.008234&num=1&t=h&z=18

Place where crane was unloaded and placed back on live rail.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.271679,-79.988188&hl=en&num=1&t=h&z=18

So was this crane used by the scrap yard? This is a very good story, glad to see it all worked out.

No the crane was not used by the scrap yard to the best of our knowledge, but it was operational when sent to scrap.

Steven - This brings up a question. Although wrecking cranes, pile drivers, etc. are separate from a coal supply, they still need to be fueled when in operation. Usually a tender was part of a work train and "standing by" so that when a crane needed coal, it could secure same from that tender. Do you know if N&W #514908 (ex-#4974) had a certain tender "assigned" to it when it was in service for the railroad? If so, are any of those particular type tenders still in existance?

Thanks.

Les

I don't believe the cranes had the high volume demands a locomotive did, I would be sure they were all hand fired. Like the Steam engines I don't think any had specific tenders assigned, just nab what was available.
I don't know if they had onboard coal storage but you could easily have several coal buckets handy ready to throw in.

The crane is definitely hand-fired. It has an on-board coal bunker in the right side wall of the cab (facing forward) and a water tank in the left side. You can see the fill door for the coal bunker in Steve's "After Move" picture on page 1.

got it, easy shot for the coal towers.