Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9503020021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM COSBY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than 15 years ago, I took my daughter and a friend on a 611 excursion from Charlottesville. Three years ago, my wife and I took one of the final excursions led by the 1218 from Roanoke to the New River and back. Both trips are indelibly ingrained in our family consciousness. The highlight of the earlier trip was the opportunity to take our daughter and a friend on a train ride as trains used to be.
One highlight of the later trip was the stop at the Montgomery County coaling station. On a beautiful October day, we debarked to take advantage of the photo opportunity as the 1218 backed its 20 or so passenger cars up, then came barreling down the track.
What a splendid display of scarcely controlled brute steam power exuding heat, hissing and raw steam power as it passed appreciative watchers! Another highlight was the journey along the New River. Yellow, orange, red and brown leaves of fall welcomed us as the sun danced on the river to give reflections of all the world about us. It was a spectacle of nature not soon forgotten.
The excursions have now ceased, and NS auctioned off most of its steam-excursion equipment recently in Irondale, Ala. While termination of this popular program is regrettable, it's not my purpose to castigate NS for its decision. As a for-profit corporation, it's in business to make money for its stockholders, and I have to think the steam-excursion program was a loss leader, undertaken by the railroad for public-relations purposes. So, I reluctantly accept the decision. Instead, I focus on the two locomotives that, for 28 years, provided the motive power for the excursion program.
The 611 is the better-known locomotive. A streamlined Class J, she was built in the Roanoke shops in 1950, and hauled well-known passenger trains such as the Powhatan Arrow and Pocohontas. The 611 was contributed to Roanoke city when active steam operations ceased about 1960. After retirement from the excursion service, she'll return to Roanoke to the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
The 1218 is another story. It is a Class A (nonstreamlined) freight locomotive also built in the Roanoke shops, in 1943. The A's are renowned throughout railroad and model-railroad circles for their ``double articulation.'' With a 2-6-6-4 wheel design (two wheels on the lead truck, six 70-inch wheels in the first and second driver set, and four wheels on the trailer truck), the A was designed for heavy hauling in the mountainous region of the Appalachians. Both driver sets were articulated, meaning they rotated independently of the locomotive frame. Thus the locomotive could maneuver the tight curves of the N&W in the mountains. It's a marvel of steam motive power.
I'm concerned for the fate of the 1218. If a machine can be beautiful, this one is. If the 611 represents the heart of N&W steam operations, the 1218 is the soul and the brawn. Together with the Class Y's (now extinct except for No. 2156 at St. Louis), they hauled 94 percent of N&W's freight-ton miles as late as 1953.
A locomotive as distinguished as the 1218 deserves a better fate than the scrap heap or sale to a commercial company intending to use her as a stationary boiler. She deserves to be displayed in all her glory alongside the 611 in the transportation museum here in the town of her birth.
NS has been known in the past for its generous support of civic and cultural affairs in the city. It has contributed generously to Center in the Square, the Mill Mountain Theatre, United Way and other organizations. Its public-relations department has responded promptly and courteously to my inquiries about the fate of the 1218.
I now hope NS will contribute the 1218 to the transportation museum, and bring her home to Roanoke.
Jim Cosby of Roanoke is an attorney with a federal agency.
by CNB