No, not an article about the Duke 8P, but oneabout an additional poppet valve engine nowreturned to service. Reading old articles ofthe time it seems that poppets were going tobe the "silver bullet" that would rescue steam...along with roller rods, kylchap exhausts,Crosti boilers, multiple cylinders....:-)http://www.heritagerailway.co.uk/headline.htm

Scroll down the page and you'll read about an event at Crewe in September in which 21 steam locomotives will participate. Those Brits know how to do it up right.Scott

Now, if we could just talk TVRM into restoring USATC #611, we'd have one too.....

I was certainly thinking of that locomotive as I wrote. Do youhave a link to a pix of it? Just how far gone is it?How about a list of poppet engines in the USA? I know ofthe one in the B&O museum.

Here's a link to a recent photo:http://members.aol.com/belpaire/us.html#5It doesn't appear to be in very good shape. A lot of parts are absent in the photo but hopefully these in storage. At any rate, it is FAR more complete than the Duke of Gloucester was prior to its restoration, so it is definitely restorable.As far as I know TVRM #611 and the C&O 4-6-4 #490 in Baltimore are the only surviving U.S. poppet valve equipped locomotives. On most U.S. railways, poppet installations were pretty much experimental and so these locomotives were among the first to be scrapped.

Oh no. I've seen the pix of the 8P as it came fromthe yard but I wasnt prepared to see our dear insuch a state! One can only hope they get a largedonation of Corrosion-X and apply it liberallystarting with the valving.I guess I'll join the "never mind the Cuban steamers,let's get all of ours indoors first" crowd.Thanks for the links.

I bet if you contributed enough money TVRM would restore whatever it was you wanted. I usually only see kids and families spending money and buying tickets down there and they could care less about poppet valves. There is not a better place on this earth to introduce a young person to real trains.

The 611 as we received it is a real basket case but it is restorable. We acquired the remains because of two reasons, 1) its similarity to 610 (not a true S-160 but close) and 2) the poppet valves.We have acquired another lead truck (obtained from Europe along with some other spare parts) to replace the missing lead truck. We think that we have all the parts for the poppet valve machinery.The eventual restoration of USATC 611 is going to be a question of priorities. I would expect that the next steam locomotive to undergo restoration will be CPR 5288. We also have a number of other pieces of equipment (freight cars and vintage diesels) that are going to receive cosmetic restorations. My crystal ball gets a bit foggy after that.Obvioulsy if Bill Gates or someone other person was to walk in tomorrow and leave us a blank check to restore the locomotive...