Probably because stationary boiler service severly damages the boiler. With Clover Valley lumber 2-6-6-2 #4 being restored at the niles canyon, it served as a stationary boiler in nevada and it severly damaged the super heaters. So I can see why a stationary engine was not used, plus if it was just the boiler, which I believe it was a complete engine but if not, the frame and tender would have to be built and that aint cheap. I imagine it was cheaper to fix a steamer not used since retirement.

I'd guess that's because they left the superheaters in place but only drew saturated steam from the boiler when using it in stationary service. No steam flow to cool the elements would eventually toast them. That just means you have to replace the elements though, something you'd likely do anyway. N&W 1218 was used as a stationary boiler and no irreparable harm was done to the boiler.

Of course back in the 60's if they were looking for an "easy" excursion engine that might have been considered too big of an obstacle to deal with.

I have long heard that "story" or rumor about a locomotive being used as a boiler in Alcoa...likely at one of the 3 Alcoa plants. And I have tried to run it down many, many times. There are a zillion retired workers from Alcoa in the area and....I have never found anybody who had a clue what I was asking about. Sometimes they will say "maybe before my time"...from somebody who is now 80.

I have also seen scads of photos taken of every aspect within the plant...nothing like that. I'm not even sure they had a boiler. They used/use electricity to make and roll the aluminum (owning several hydro-electric dams)...what would the boiler have done? Heat the outhouse?

I am not sure why/how a locomotive boiler would have made it's way all the way to Alcoa from Erwin. There would have been a lot of closer choices. Also Alcoa was never an underfunded operation...if they need a boiler...they order a boiler. It would not be like them to rig up a salvaged boiler.

Alcoa did have steam switchers at one time and I have seen photos of a stout 0-8-0...we have been told they were cut up on the property when diesels were obtained.

T7

RE: Clinchfield 2-8-2 as stationary boiler--- that story being brought up now may very well have been referring to a hoax given life by a well-known steam photographer and columnist of the late 60s-early 70s. I recall that he was "fed" a steady and increasingly plausible (with details seemingly lifted from railroad files) story about the CRR 2-8-2 that still existed in 1970, in stationary service. The monthly column carried breathless items revealing his mounting excitement about this "find"----- The hoax was finally revealed, the mentions abruptly ceased, and said photographer has been extremely touchy about it ever since.

The CRR Challengers were scrapped in 1969-71 in Florida. They were apparently held at Erwin for years waiting for their equipment trusts to expire.

Howard P.

Tom Moore ordered them to restore the little tea kettle when he had a fleet of Challengers rusting away? If true that's very sad.

Steve

I think the challengers left Erwin long before Moore became head of the CRR. When they were down in Florida, they were out of his control and ownership.

I am pretty sure the challengers were scrapped before the #1 was restored.

If I remember the story correctly...they sat around waiting for the price of scrap to go up...and then they were moved to Florida to be scrapped...am I remembering correctly? And I think they sat around down there before getting cut up as well.

The #1 was really restored on a whim. I do not think they had the big excursion program in mind...it just "took off".

Wow...I attended a 90th anniversary excursion for that locomotive. I had not thought about that in a long time. They brought a cake and we all had a slice...somewhere up in the mountains. I guess she did not make it to 100.

I remember the engineer and fireman team...the Hatcher Brothers? They were certainly well photographed.

T7

Forgive the bump, but I've long been fascinated by the Clinchfield 4-6-6-4's that survived for so long after retirement with little attention and spotted something intriguing in the great article that Trains Magazine published about #1's restoration in the March 1973 issue (Article is titled 'Tom's Engine' and was written by William S. Cannon).

In it, he says that "a number plate for the smokebox was tooled from a piece of steel which formerly was the front boiler slide plate on E-class 4-6-6-4 No. 672".

While the limited sources out there say that the four E-2s that stuck around for a long time to wait out their 15 year financing were sold for scrap to a Florida outfit at the end of 1962 (Being cut up down in Florida circa 1970), I wonder if this E-3 Challenger managed to hang around Erwin for a few more years after that?

If not and the last 4-6-6-4's had departed back in early 1963, I wonder how the heck that they knew that this piece of scrap that they had hung on to was specifically from the 672? I find it surprising that they'd know such a detail if she had been scrapped years earlier.

Yet if she was still sitting in the scrap line in the late 1960's and they needed a piece of steel off of her to use for the restoration of this 1880's era machine, it starts to make some sense why they'd of known that it was from the 672.

Just for the mention, Ron Ziel's epic book "Twilight of Steam" has a photo of acres of Clinchfield Challengers, lined up pilot to tender, and mostly untouched after the fires were dropped. Ron noted, "the big locomotive need cherish no illusions of returning to steam, as they have all been condemned to scrap". The publishing date was 1963, so they evidently stood around for a long time.
Clinchfield #1 was a nod to the history of steam power during the revival of the 70's. As I recall, she was literally "used up" on excursions, having so little capability, an F7B unit was used as a pusher immediately behind to ten-wheeler.

I had no idea they'd waited for that long. Where did they go in Florida to meet the torch?

According to this photo, taken in August of 1969, they were scrapped at "the D. J. Joseph scrap yard in Tampa which was just east of the ACL's Uceta Yard." It shows several of the Challengers, sans tenders, awaiting scrapping in pretty sorry condition.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3152751

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3404146

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3404145

Not much worse than some of the engines that came out of the Barry scrapyard in UK that were totally restored. Of course those were somewhat to much smaller.

Was there a "hospital train" to move all of these locomotives, or were they shipped one or a few at a time?

Thank you!

Wesley

I believe it was just the four E-2's (the last Challengers built in 1947) that went to the Tampa area and were cut up around 1970 after sitting for a number of years after delivery.

In the few pictures that circulate of them down there waiting to be cut up (And the scrapping process), there's no E-1's or E-3's in sight. Just these four E-2's.

They were delivered with their tenders and rested in a row coupled together for a number of years, but the scrapyard for some reason removed the tenders when they finally decided to cut them up and scrapped them separately (There's at least one picture out there of a partially scrapped E-2 tender in the process of being cut up, with an intact sister behind it).

I've never seen it said where the E-1's or the WPB diverted Union Pacific locomotives that Clinchfield purchased from the Rio Grande after WWII (The E-3's) were cut up. That has me wondering if at least this particular E-3 managed to survive on the scrap line in Erwin for several more years after the E-2's had been sold for scrap in 1963.

A quick search turned up this site with a score of heart rending images of the Clinchfield Challengers store for an hoped upswing in business. THere's a great deal on Clinchfield #1 as well.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum ... 68/page68/