Today I found this locomotive on display in Lester Manor, VA; located in Prince Williams County.

The engine was once on display at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, VA, but no one knows if the engine was actually used by them, more or less the rest of its history.

Any ideas?

2006 photo at said works/museum site: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=160028

2001: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8348059@N0 ... 926417540/

It appears at cursory glance that none of our "usual" sources--Conrad's books, the two steam locomotive database websites, etc--have any information on this loco, its builder/number/original owner, etc. (SteamLocomotive.info says it was built in 1918.) A very hard slog through multiple sources could pull up likely candidates, but hopefully someone here knows where this loco was before Tredegar, and then Walker, somehow got it. As far as I can tell, this loco was most likely only moved to Tredegar to "represent" the 50 or so steam locomotives built at that site back in Civil War days, and was likely deaccessioned as it is the "wrong period" for a real 1800s Tredegar loco after all.

Rather than Prince William County, I believe it's in King William County. See:

http://virginia.hometownlocator.com/map ... 0manor.cfm

And if one looks at the aerial view on Google, it appears a passenger car, hidden behind the 0-4-0T, cabooses, and station, has quite recently been added to the collection. I wonder what the story, identification, etc. is on that.

Lester Manor's owners are not completely reclusive, and the property has been opened up for public tours on occasion.

After asking the same question on the ODR Yahoo Group, someone who saw the locomotive on display in Richmond said there was a sign posted next to the engine with its history.

Engine Number 8, Construction Number 2882.

The locomotive on display here is representative of the small steam locomotives that ran at Tredegar for over sixty years, Engine number 8 is an 0-4-0 T manufactured in 12/1918 by the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes Barre, PA. It was originally purchased by the Ironton Solvey Coke Company of Ironton, OH and served there until WWII when it was requisitioned by the US Navy. During the war, 8 worked in Norfolk, VA. In the late 1940s the engine was sold to the consolidated Sand and Gravel Company of Phenix City, AL where it hauled freight for nearly 25 years. In 1971, CS&G sold the locomotive to the Cradle of the Confederacy Railroad museum in Montgomery, AL. Purchased by a private owner in 1989, number 8 came to Tredegar in 1994. Hundreds of this type of locomotive were produced in the twentieth century. Although most have been scrapped, a few survive including a sister locomotive to 2882. Engine construction number 2888, built eleven months after 8, originally worked at the New Haven Trap Rock Company and is now at the NPS Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA.