N&W Class J 611 is ON THE MOVE!

Here's the Glamour Locomotive of all time...ESPEE's Masterpiece and California's Gemstone!

Bad Order Hal

NICE colors and a close second, but no cigar! 

Hal, Doesn't seem you are getting a break here.

Would this beauty be a contender ?

I will admit if it was posted I missed it, but how will they move the 611 to Spencer?  Do we know the route?

HEY FOREST,

I've already had my break:

I've witnessed steam in its day-to-day work, not just from fan trips or photo run-bys!

BAD ORDER

Boomer, that would absolutely be a contender!

BAD ORDER

Just curious as to why you state "and California's Gemstone!"? 

HOT WATER,

Why did I say "California's Gemstone"?

I guess it's because I felt like it...

BAD ORDER

611 FTW, Because beauty is more than skin deep !

Well getting back to the 611, no I don't believe that has been announced or if the route will be announced for that matter....we'll just have to wait and see. 

jaygee...agreed 100%.

Our favorite here (611) is a member of the last Class of the famous N&W Big Three...all major components in allowing the carrier to push steam power to the absolute screaming edge of operability.  This was in day to day operation, no less, and one is reminded that the 5100 DBHP credited to the J Class was recorded in typical operations, with typical trains, over the regions where the 600 Class was in use. We still really don't know what the ultimate figures on these machines are, as they were not flogged in the same manner as say, NYCS locomotives were...both at Selkirk, and in OTR testing. I'm going to take a guess that to get that type of info on 611, you'd have to dyno her with a heavy freight train on a fairly level profile. I say this because I've never heard of such testing other than for recording some very specific engine data, such as that covering the conversion from 275 to 300 PSI boiler pressure.  IIRC, Ed King had some insight as to what could be expected when you slapped a J on an N&W time freight !

I believe Ed King relayed a story of the 607 in freight service in 1958 handling a train weighing 12,297 tons which was hauled from Williamson to Portsmouth a distance of 111 miles in 3 hrs 48 minutes  .  A lot of the run was over 35 mph, and the maximum speed was 41 mph I think.  Not bad for a 70" drivered Northern. 

The J's were rated for coal drags between Williamson and Portsmouth and with time freights as well.  I think from Roanoke to Crewe and to Petersburg also.  I have always said they were race horses and army mules all in one.

  Memo at work said a 9 month renovation with over $2 million of the $3.5 million needed already acquired .

  Chris, we can run a 200 car coal train (24,000 + tons) with two big six's in less than 5 hours,giving 45 minutes to run across the scales at Prichard,from Williamson to Portsmouth.And that's getting the train up to 40-42 mph (50 mph track for a coal train) in the bottoms from Ironton to Portsmouth,Oh.

I think the reason he's asking you that is because of the fact that SP #4449 that you're referencing in your pictures, is home-based in Oregon, and not in California as I mentioned earlier in this topic.

The REAL Espee gemstone ...was the AC9; converted to oil with C25 tank behind!  IMHO, natch !    Can you picture a 3800 on the 1950 Sunset at speed....can you dig it?  I knew you could !

Wow...those are some interesting numbers.

I will admit if it was posted I missed it, but how will they move the 611 to Spencer?  Do we know the route?

Well getting back to the 611, no I don't believe that has been announced or if the route will be announced for that matter....we'll just have to wait and see.

I would be willing to bet a dollar to a dozen donuts that it will go east out of Roanoke, down the old VGN to the Sou. connection at Hurt. Then south to Greensboro and west to Spencer.

Should be quite the crowd gathered for the big event...can't wait.

As a native Virginian, I say with confidence that both 611 and 1218 are considered "Prides of Virginia" as they were both "born and raised here". 

As for the better looking locomotive between 611 and 4449, I would have to say that while 4449 is a very beautiful locomotive, the 611 has understated elegance going for her.

611 and 4449 look equally great in different ways.

A crowd? To watch a dead steam locomotive in tow behind a diesel or two?

Why? Nothing to see there...

If I had the view behind the hot boiler of a mainline steam locomotive like you do Rich i'd agree, but since i don't, I don't!

Maybe for you Rich, you run main line steam but for all of us who don't it's exciting to see the road to life begin.  Just like the first time when she was pulled out of the "museum" the crowd was huge.  There will be a crowd I'm sure....just as when the 4014 was moved to Colton.

Amen CWEX, I agree with you totally. Rich is forgetting all of the experience that he has gained over the years working on/firing/engineering steam locomotives. Doing something in his life, that most of us would who "kill for". Guess, I better watch what I print, could get put behind bars these days. As a young boy I pedaled a bicycle all across Louisville,Ky watching steam engines from 8 different major railroads work in and thru the Louisville/Jeffersonville, Ind area. I'll never forget the most sickening sites in my life, except what I saw in Nam, and that was cold dead steam locomotives going to the Nussbaume Steel cutting torch, during the early middle fifties. I'm so glad that my stepfather was a Steam/Diesel Locomotive engineer, and shared some of his stories, as well as some engine rides that I got as a kid. How many kids of today can say something like that, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to work a job like Rich Melvin does. There is bound to be Steam Locomotives in Heaven!

Yo, Brandy !   You must have seen Pennsy's local Loo-ah-vull C1 shifter...the one with the nifty roll-top coal board tender, and three man doghouse !  IIRC, this was the last C1 running on the Penn.   They also had T1 5500s when they were still running, and the Big Jay, of course.  As for the 611 move, I'd be there in a heartbeat...to document every yummy detail of her resurrection process. Now 382 and 475 are pretty N&W kool, but 611....good golly, Miss Molly !

Jaygee, are you from the old Westend of Louisville?  Yes, I did see those engines that you spoke of, but never ever saw any N&W engines, as they never came into Louisville. Old exchange engines that I ever saw was when everything dieselized, I saw a lot of Atlantic Coast Line engines, when the Southwind of the Pennsy came North from the South toward Indianapolis enroute to Chicago. When I was about 6-7 years old we lived on east end of Portland near Devon Paint Company and I could stand in my front yard and bounce a ball off the roundhouse back wall which was across the street from my home. When the hostlers would service the Pennsy steam engines, they had tracks for the bugger locomotives that lay aside the west end of the roundhouse, as well as the east side of the roundhouse. I guess you'd call these get ready tracks, but what ever. If my parents ever knew that I made these bicycle travels all over the city looking and watch steam locomotives, I wouldn't have lived to make this post. In those days that city wasn't as "Mean" as it is today. I also remember seeing the only "Hudson" that the I.C. railway had in their roster. It ran from Louisville, south to at least Central City, Ky as I rode a passenger there in the late fourties to visit some family friends in Mulhenburg County,Ky. In all honesty, I don't remember seeing a T-1 there, as when their passenger trains left Union Station, they went a few blocks south, I believe to Ormsby Street, then made a westward loop back and ran through the middle of the Oak street yard, heading north toward Indianapolis, Ind. The T-1's I believe were a ridgid frame locomotive, and the loop south of Union Station wasn't wide enough radius for an engine of that length to turn on. If you want to hear some more, email me, and I won't tie the forum up with my  "Old Man Jibberish". Some of the members get PO'd when you Blah,blah,blah on a subject.    

I'll be looking forward to watching all the Youtube videos with my son.

Oh yes....Sleek and sexy in gloss black.

There is going to be a bunch of video popping up soon on the move...great times for the 611!!!!

Nothing announced yet, but it's rather obvious.  They will NOT move it down the Punkin Vine to Winston-Salem.  The 611 never ran that route during excursion service, and at any rate, they are not going to deal with the grades.

That pretty much leaves going to the Southern mainline and down through Danville and Greensboro.  The only debate is whether to tow it up the N&W to Lynchburg, and then down the Southern, or to take the Virginian cutoff to Altavista.  If I had to guess, I'd wager on Lynchburg.

Kevin