Y6B 2171

[NW Mailing List]

Just a minor correct and some addition to Bud's excellent report. The  
two locomotive, 2143 and 2174 were at United Iron and Metal, not  
Virginia Scrap Iron and Metal. United had been sold sometime in 1975  
to British interests, I am guessing as part of some larger deal, and  
their main mission was clear, scrap everything on site, and close the  
business, which was completed sometime in 1976. United had also kept  
2189 on the property fairly late, cutting it up sometime about 1967,  
I remember seeing it, and I have a photo of it in decrepit shape. I  
don't believe that 2171 lasted very long, scrap steel had a fairly  
high value in 1960-1962, I wish I could find some historic data on  
scrap pricing, anyone with suggestions of a internet source?

At least one piece of 2171 survives for certain, the number plate has  
been sitting on my mantle for over 20 years now.

I believe that the pilot from 2174 is the one on display placed along  
Roanoke's Railwalk.

The 2143 and 2174 had been stored for sometime at Shaffers Crossing,  
on the dead line east of the roundhouse, I remember begin taken up  
there about 1969 and taking snapshots of them sitting there. Sometime  
about 1970 or so, N&W told United they would have to get them out of  
there, and moved them to the scrap yard. I don't have any of my  
references with me, but I am fairly certain they had been sold in  
1960 or 1961.

I think on the same roll of film, I had a shot of the Virginian  
Narrows power house in excellent afternoon light. I had made my  
father stop and let me take the photo on our way back from a family  
vacation. I said "let me get a picture, you never know when they are  
going to tear something like that down." His response was, "oh, they  
are not going to tear that down, it is too much trouble." but he  
stopped anyway. Less than a year later, the place was gone.  Lesson  
to be learned, always take photos, you never truly know when  
something will be gone the next time.


Best
Ken Miller

On Oct 29, 2009, at 12:00 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:


> I am not familiar with the roster in the Y Book. The 2171 could  

> have been scrapped in 5-1970, but I cannot verify this. But that  

> was not the last Y6b scrapped.

>

> In late 1975, I walked around both Y6 2143 and Y6b 2174 in the yard  

> of the Virginia Iron and Metal in Roanoke. I even walked on top of  

> the boiler of the 2174 and being a bright sunny day, I viewed the  

> "waffleiron" exhaust ports by looking down the stack. The 2174 had  

> its tender; the 2143 did not.

>

> I went overseas in early 2-1976. Soon afterward, I received a  

> Roanoke Times newspaper clipping dated Friday, February 20, 1976.  

> The clipping was about the scrapyard cutting up the 2174, the last  

> Y6b. The article stated that the scrapping began on the previous  

> Monday [that would the February 16th] and that its sister [that  

> would be 2143] had been scrapped a couple of weeks earlier.

>

> The 2143 was the last Y6 and the 2174 the last Y6b. The article  

> also stated that only one other Y6 class was left--that would be  

> the Y6a 2156 in St. Louis at the National Museum of Transportation.  

> BTW, the 2171 had been in the VI&M, too.

>

> I understand that there was some effort to save the 2174 but scrap  

> metal values were extremely high in the mid-70s. The figure I heard  

> was the 2174 was valued at about $50,000 and that the scrapyard had  

> paid only about $5,000 for itin 1960. If this is so, the scrapyard  

> made a killin' on this one.

>

> Bud Jeffries

>

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: NW Mailing List

> To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:11 PM

> Subject: Y6B 2171

>

> The Y6b roster on page 118 of the N&W Class Y book from TLC  

> Publishing shows that engine #2171 was not scrapped until May of  

> 1970.  Why was this the last Y6b to be cut-up?  Were there any  

> efforts made to save her?  I always thought that all Y6b's were  

> scrapped by the 1960's.

>

> Jeff Morfit

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