Just wondering if the ACL 2-8-0 at the South Carolina museum is visable to the public yet? If it is not, is there any time table?
Thanks,
Eric

The 712 is still in unrestored condition and you can't go up to her and take pictures without special permission. However, the engine can be seen as the train goes by it coming into the east end of the Rion Quarry yard. So the answer is "sort of." Getting paint on the engine is a very low priority, especially since we don't own her and the lease is only for 15 years. We're about halfway through that term.

Two years ago, the south siding in Rion was rebuilt on a slightly new alignment, which made room for a storage track (we call it the "junk track," although our President cringes when we do so) immediately to the south on the east end of the yard. The new track alignments generally follow the historical alignment, but bypass the truck scale apron that was poured over the original rails (it would have been cost prohibitive to try and remove all that concrete, and besides we now have the start of a passenger platform), eases a couple curves somewhat, and eliminates some of the bad track design practices the R&R used.

The 712 is at the extreme east end of the new storage track, which is maybe 1000 feet long. She's followed by what we believe to be R&R #19's original tender, the remains of the R&R's little Vulcan car mover, the remains of Columbia Silica (ex-US Army) GE 23-ton #10 and Porter 45-ton #5, and a few cars -- IIRC it's the remnants of a four-wheel R&R dump car, the ACL express reefer, a L&N bay-window caboose, and the DODX flat car plus an archbar truck from our Lake Murray/R&R 8-wheel dump car that I just dropped in the siding on Saturday. I may have some of those cars out of order. Oh, and the Tamper TR-1 prototype tie inserter is also on the junk track, in between the reefer and caboose IIRC.

Immediately across the South Siding from the junk track is the beginnings of the Rion yard ladder, which we hope to expand with our current TEA-21 grant. Sitting on the yard ladder is the Winnsboro Granite American crane (sans boom, which was only good for scrap -- we're buying a reconditioned boom for it) and a couple tampers. This stuff is also visible from the train as you enter the yard, but not otherwise accessible.

Getting the Rion Quarry yard safe to let the public off the train is a long-term goal, but there's no firm timetable. It's not a really high priority because there's no real benefit to it at the moment. I'd like to see the "junk track" eventually turned into a display track for a freight or MOW train with the 712 at the head end, and the extra tender and junker diesels moved elsewhere.

Right now, Rion is the only place we have to store stuff since we lost a good 350 feet of storage space due to having to keep the main line at Rockton clear for NS. We also used to keep stuff on the Rockton sidings right up to (and often past) the fouling points. Having to put derails on the yard tracks lost us another good 3-4 carlegnths of storage space. The new "ramp track" at Rockton made up for some of that but not all.

The south siding in Rion is going to be really plugged up for a while because we're about to start work on rebuilding the badly deteriorated Greenbrier siding, so everything on that track has to go to Rion. We're pulling the stuff on the siding this weekend. If we get it all off without putting at least one axle on the ground it'll be a minor miracle -- that track is in AWFUL shape. Spectators welcome, but having a camera in your hand won't exempt you from potential gofer duty!

Once the siding is clear, we'll pull it up and it'll be rebuilt on a new alignment by a contractor. It's WAY too close to the main right now, pax can reach out and touch the stuff on the siding without straining at all. The siding will be moved over about 8 feet. The folks up at the WW&F have dibs on the 60# rail that's coming out, it'll be rebuilt with the 85# rail that came out of the main at Rockton when it was rebuilt for the NS trains going to the new Guardian Fiberglass plant.

In case anyone was wondering about anything relating to the 712 after my last post, here's a current picture, taken on March 10, 2007. The sun was all wrong for any photography of any kind in Rion no matter what I was trying to photograph, so apologies for the poor exposure.



Here's a photo of Columbia Silica Sand #10:



And Columbia Silica Sand #5:



My Internet connection has been flaky the last couple weeks. The pix reside on my personal webserver. If the pictures don't show up it means my cable modem needs to be reset again. Try looking again in the evening.

Hi,

Wouldn't it be in the best interest of the museum to at least make an effort to stabilize the locomotive? If I were leasing a locomotive to a group, it would infuriate me to know that they were doing nothing with it and didn't care to even put a little primer on it or at least cover the stack. To me, it would be benefitial to both parties to make an effort to keep the locomotive from rusting away. At the end of the lease term, there would be the possibility of a longer term or donation depending on the circumstances, but if nothing was done, then there would possibly be bad faith between the two parties with possibly disastrous results.

Just curious,

Stuart

The bad faith already exists, and is the main reason we're not doing anything with the engine. Most of us feel like the owner is trying to get us to cosmetically restore it essentially for nothing so the owner can sell it at the end of the lease term. There's a long and storied history that even includes someone being found floating face-down in the quarry -- it'd make a great novel. Maybe one day I'll write it, but I'd rather not delve into it here and now. The upshot is that the engine is out of our way on the very end of the junk track, and it can stay there forever as far as we're concerned. It's sad that politics are preventing the locomotive's true preservation, but as I say almost daily... "Welcome to Fairfield County."