I have been seeing pictures and video on Facebook of guys working on 614 in Clifton Forge getting it ready to move. I visited their website and it sounds promising. Any other details out there? Their website at http://www.co614.com says it is returning to the rails.

We have all heard Ross's grand plans for 30 years, could one of them finally hit?

As recently posted I am not at liberty to provide any details yet other than to say that things are looking bright for the 614 to return to service soon.

More info will be coming along in the near future.

Thanks for your interest, Ross Rowland

I hope they add Porta's improvements, while they're at it. Wasn't that the original plan, after doing the as-built testing in Jan. 1985?

Tom Hamilton

If they're not going to implement any form of feedwater heating and stick with the Nathans, there's little point in more esoteric 'thermodynamic enhancements'.

Be glad it will be running. The science projects can wait until later.

I’ll be heading to Clifton Forge in a few weeks for the COHS conference and they hinted at some kind of surprise; imagine this is it. Very curious where the restoration will be done. I’m hoping at Spencer.

I have CSX Bicentennial on my mainline surprise steam bingo card. Next to CP 2816.

~Wesley

Well, even if it isn’t CSX, there’s a certain railroad that hosted excursions very close by last year that has trackage into Clifton forge.

I think I even asked about it last year. It’s all speculation of course but 614 would be perfect for the Goshen-Staunton trains.

Ok guys, looking forward to the how, when and where info. My big question is, what is the long term strategy for the 614? Over to you, Ross!

Maybe it'll be pulling the new Freedom Train?

C&O 614 is much too modern and healthy a locomotive, similar to N&W 611, to stand idle and static. She's been in operation fairly recently. This is a long-term appropriate heritage locomotive available for all the purposes a modern railroad wishes to show the flag.
Ross knows what he's doing with his Greenbriar - give him a chance to build the appropriate fanfare to launch this project.

This is my assumption, since there is a new Y, and servicing facilities there. And clearly a demand.

Given that the property and facility it privately owned by the key person that spearheaded the Goshen trips last year, that area is a rich opportunity for steam. It would be even better with the 614 given that it ran on the territory 'back in the day' and that engine isn't connected to the Virginia Museaum of Transportaion like the 611 is. Having a locomotive that isn't part of the dysfunction of that place is a bonus.

One can hope right?

This is by far the most logical place for it, and one that would benefit pretty much everyone. They've put a lot of time and money into improvements and they need a locomotive now that 611 is out of the picture, at least for now. I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work and it sounds like a great place for 614 to be.

Hello,

The test mule for Porta enhancements appears to be resting (looking for love) across the street from the Royal Cape Yacht Club at the Cape Town water front. (Assuming Google maps may be recent?)

Drop the coordinates below into Google maps search bar…..

(-33.9209455, 18.4451859)

Ceres Rail’s recent very brief 3450 ops appeared to be a struggle before it had problems. Transnet retains ownership of the Red Devil and certainly no one wants to drop serious investment into it without ownership.

The 3450 having twin stacks has a convenient cradle for a cylindrical shell and tube water heater, which was applied in the 1981 upgrade , it was later removed.

A Red Devil front end treatment (with a heater) could raise the 614 to the superior performing 4-8-4 in the country. [Albeit, an extended smokebox, twin stacks and smoke lifters would send the C&O rivet counters into orbit.

Another roller rod locomotive back in service would always be welcome.

Regards

Randy

The use of an angled stack on a road 'competing' with the C&O is well-established (N&W Y class). The arrangement described can be seen on the VR Hudson (IIRC converted by Girdlestone) and the heat exchanger for a closed Elesco system can fit quite neatly 'between' the forward-tilted and rearward-tilted stacks.

But I'd question just how much actual value such an expensive, and basically ahistorical in context, modification is, above the use of a larger-diameter single (or conventional double) stack, with multiple turning vanes and a proper multiple-jet nozzle, for the anticipated use of this locomotive. Removing valve limitations, or providing reversing compression control, are less visually-intrusive modifications that 'should be' done before a radical front-end modification is tried, especially in light of the fact that no feedwater heater is slated to be installed on the locomotive at present.

A perfectly historical mod would be to install (and test) Snyder preheaters, which are basically loops of 2" pipe with exhaust steam run through them in a 'radiator' arrangement between the mud ring and the ashpan. C&O testing of these in the late 1940s gave a thermal improvement of "over 10 percent" although it wasn't stated carefully what the 10% was an improvement on. Certainly combustion-air preheat would make far more sense than cellular-windbox GPCS on this locomotive.

The other modification would be a Cunningham circulator (which was Canadian-patented in 1950) -- this is an external device that takes 'downcoming' water in the convection section (from a location determined by experiment to be actually downcoming), runs it through a 'jet' pump with no actively moving parts, and circulates it through manifolsa and fan nozzles into the firebox water legs above the mud ring. This gives much of the circulation improvement and reduction of DNB of a circulating waterwall without major construction changes.

It's a bit amusing to see 'Wardale improvements' suggested for 614 when Wardale was so definitely slapped down in the 614T years.