Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9503020058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It's appropriate to be rainy for this kind of thing - for a funeral, basically," said Ken Miller, a member of the Roanoke Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. He, along with two other chapter members, attended the auction.
Miller's remarks captured the regret and disappointment that many railroad fans felt when NS announced in October that it was discontinuing its 25-year-old steam excursion program after the 1994 season. The railroad, which ran 50 steam-powered excursions last year, said they no longer fit in with NS' modern freight business.
At Tuesday's auction at the NS steam shop in the Birmingham, Ala., suburb, the railroad rid itself of the heirlooms of its own dead past - holding an estate sale of the once-cherished possessions of a different era.
And Miller and his fellow Roanoke rail fans picked up a bargain.
They bought a tool car, a former Norfolk and Western Railway car that ran behind NS' Class J No.611 steam engine during its excursion career. The 611, which was built in N&W's Roanoke shops, was given to the city of Roanoke in 1982 in honor of the city's centennial.
The railroad returned the powerful, streamlined locomotive to Roanoke after the end of last year's excursion season. It eventually will rest at the Virginia Museum of Transportation on Norfolk Avenue.
The historic tool car, which was built by the Bethlehem Steel Co., is in excellent shape, Miller said. The 65-foot car was used to carry the hard-to-find tools to repair the locomotive and to provide accommodations for the engine crew.
The Roanoke delegation had its eye on the car before it left for Alabama, Miller said. The Roanoke chapter of the railway historical society had been negotiating with NS for the car as partial compensation for one of the chapter's passenger cars that was leased to NS and destroyed in a wreck at the railroad's Lynchburg yard in September. Because those talks appeared to be going nowhere, the chapter decided to go ahead and buy the car, he said.
At least three other groups bid on the tool car. Miller believes two were from Fort Wayne, Ind., and Virginia's Eastern Shore. The Roanokers paid a little more for the car than they had hoped, Miller said. He wouldn't say how much, but said the car went for considerably less than the other passenger cars the railroad put up for auction.
"We bid on a few other things, but most went for considerably higher than we felt they were worth," Miller said. The group bid unsuccessfully for some tools and parts, he said.
Most everything the railroad put up for auction sold, Miller said. That included eight passenger cars, five water cars, two derrick cars and 15 cabooses. The cabooses went for between $4,000 and $4,500, he said. Most of the passenger cars were bought by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, he said.
The auction drew people from the tourist railroad industry and the holiday industry from all over the country, Miller said. Among those in attendance were representatives of Union Pacific's steam program and West Virginia's Cass Scenic Railroad.
by CNB