Steam Question on the Shenandoah Division

[NW Mailing List]

Group,

	I have been watching this discussion for several days now. I have two
points I would like to add. First, to answer the original question, it was
not done for both technical and political reasons. I was at that time a
member of the Winchester Chapter NRHS and on the trip committee. Shortly
after the big engines were put into the excursion program of the recently
merged NS system, the Southern side of the family submitted a list of their
lines on which the J 611 and the A 1218 could operate. No such information
existed for the N&W side of the family, as they had not been operating steam
excursions. We, (the Winchester Chapter NRHS) had run several other trips,
including the first fan trip on the South Branch Valley so we went to
Roanoke to propose a trip on the Shenandoah Division. Carl brought up the
aforementioned point. We pointed to the fact that the C&O Allegheny had
recently moved over the line to Shenandoah Junction on the way to Baltimore
after the Wassena park flood. This locomotive was bigger and heavier than
the A or J. We ended up getting a diesel powered trip. I suspect that this
was because we were too close to the Washington DC area, whose three
combined group thought that they were entitled to operate any steam powered
trips and were politically well entrenched. I always thought this put Carl
in a bad spot as he couldn't give it to one group without upsetting the
other.

	Secondly, back in the day....... an N&W J and A could operate over the
Shenandoah Division as long as a ATC equipped locomotive was placed in the
lead.
I can document that this happened at least twice. I preparation for my
Shenandoah Division book and talked to several people with knowledge of
this. An A,
actually the 1203, operated into Shenandoah during WWII. The source for this
was former track foremen Vance Norman who had to help realign the Wye at
Shenandoah in order to turn the engine. Secondly J 606 operated into
Shenandoah from Roanoke following the failure of the assigned K in the
1950s. A train
sheet showing it in Shenandoah and marked up for return to Roanoke is still
extant and in the possession of Robert Anderson of Stanley VA. His son is
employed as an engineer for NS. (They know the historical significance of
this, so you folks on the list leave them alone. I am hoping some day this
will end up in the Archives.)

Mason Cooper