611 move to East End Shops

[NW Mailing List]

Ken is absolutely right.  The 1218 hypothetically "could" run again, but the cost would be tremendous.  Many components are gone and would have to be custom or hand made.
   
  Next time your in Roanoke, look at it.  There are many missing components.  Not only that, but take a gander up through the ash pan.  You can see up into the firebox, or at least, what little is left of it.  It is a long way from being a complete engine, unlike 611, which was taken out of service whole and complete.  All it needed was a boiler job, as far as I know.  But, even that costs a great deal.
   
  1218 was in the midst of a major rebuild, and as I understand it, a much more thorough one than it got in the mid 1980's.  So, at the time the Steam Program was terminated, 1218 was in hundreds of pieces in the Birmingham Steam shop.  It was just put back together to make it road worthy for the trip to Roanoke.  They did keep enough materials to more or less put it back together for cosmetics, but it not at all in a functional state.
   
  In my opinion, it will never run again.  I'm not being a crudmudgeon, just honest.
   
  Ben Blevins
  

NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
  Not necessarily, I don't know, and can't say it was malicious, but 
there are a variety of parts, i.e. air pumps, that were completely 
rebuilt, sitting in plastic on the shop floor that were sold, empty 
shells were placed back on the locomotive, when it would have been as 
simple to hang the rebuilt pumps back on. There are no flues and 
tubes in the locomotive, there are hardware store bolts holding the 
firebox together, not stays. Both flues, tubes and staybolts for 1218 
were sold at the auction. Now there was/is a boxcar with a bunch of 
parts shipped back to Roanoke with 1218, that stayed with it while 
stored in the old paint shop.

It could run again, probably, but the costs of doing such are 
exponentially higher because of missing materials that were already 
on hand that could have been saved with the locomotive.

Ken Miller


       
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