Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995                   TAG: 9510030085
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STEAM LOCOMOTIVE WILL STAR IN WEEKEND RAILWAY FESTIVAL

The ceremonial homecoming of Norfolk Southern Corp.'s Class J No.611 steam locomotive will highlight the seventh annual Roanoke Railway Festival this weekend.

Besides the unveiling of the big steam engine in its new quarters at the Virginia Museum of Transportation on Norfolk Avenue, this year's festival will include a variety of exhibits and events, such as an antique auto show, a model railroad fair, a transportation art exhibit and children's activities.

Most activities will be on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. with an in-line skating race. All of the events take place in or around the transportation museum.

One of the festival's most unusual exhibits will be the Big Horn Museum, billed as the world's only horn-and-whistle museum on wheels. It features more than 50 steam whistles, 16 train and boat horns, and four ship's horns, including the world's largest ship air horn. It will be on exhibit Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

The festival begins at 7 p.m. Friday with the unveiling at the transportation museum of the Kemper Dobbins Transportation Art Exposition. The exhibit, sponsored by the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge and NationsBank, is named for renowned rail watercolorist Kemper A. Dobbins and will feature fine art and photography with a transportation theme.

Also at 7 p.m., the J-611 locomotive will be displayed. Guided tours of the 611 will be conducted on Saturday and Sunday.

During the 1950s, the train pulled the Powhatan Arrow passenger train through the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The streamlined locomotive, which was built in the Norfolk and Western Railway's Roanoke shops 45 years ago, was retired by the NW in 1959 and donated to the city of Roanoke after the railroad made the switch to diesel locomotives. More recently, it had been used by Norfolk Southern, NW's successor, to pull excursion trains until NS announced last fall that it was discontinuing its steam program.

This year's festival will be the first that doesn't feature an excursion.

For more information about the festival, call 342-5670.