Virginian caboose scrapped at Ashville, OH

[NW Mailing List]

While it is a real shame to lose another piece of history, this is and  
will be the fate of many municipal cabs, locomotives, etc. over the  
coming years. I feel certain that regardless of markings, it would  
have been cut up.

Having not seen the cab in question, I cannot speak to its condition,  
However, I can say without a doubt that every single one of the St.  
Louis built VGN cabs (300-324) that I have examined, has varying  
degrees of side sheet rot at the sills. It is caused by the collection  
of coal dust and moisture, rotting from the inside out.

A large number of cabs were donated from mid 1988-1990 or so, now 20  
or more years ago. At the time, every town, church group, or whatever  
thought it would be neat to have one, and had someone to champion the  
cause. Truly, some thought that a caboose was small enough and light  
enough to haul down the road on the back of a pick up truck or at  
least behind it.

Now, 20 years later, the person that championed the idea, might have  
been 40-60 years old, today, they could be dead, retired or moved on.  
Maintaining a piece of equipment that is the size of a small house or  
bigger becomes a lot of work. Most rail equipment was old when the  
railroad disposed of them, therefore, perhaps not in the best of shape  
to start with.

With no one locally to champion the cause, maintenance tends to stop  
or the person who did it is no longer able to continue. This problem  
is not limited to equipment, but the rail hobby in general, face it  
folks, none of us are getting any younger, and how many younger people  
are showing interest, certainly not as many as there are older folks  
involved. As I said, it is not just equipment, but archives, museums,  
rail groups in general.

Ken Miller


On Aug 14, 2010, at 1:02 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:


> Chalk it up to basic ignorance of rail history, i.e., just plain not  

> knowing what they had, or just not caring. Would it's fate have been  

> different if it had "VIRGINIAN" markings?

> There's a VIRGINIAN marked cab on display in a suburb of Chicago  

> that you can get a brief glimpse of in the movie "The Fugitive". I  

> hope that one doesn't suffer the same fate at the hands of the  

> unknowing and uncaring. And what's a VIRGINIAN cab doing near  

> Chicago anyhoo?

>

> Greg Harrod

> =================================================

>

> In a message dated 8/13/2010 10:13:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 

>  writes:

> For reason unclear to me, the former Virginian caboose located next  

> to the N&W depot at Ashville was scrapped this week. There   was an  

> article about it in the Circleville Herald today but not being a  

> subscriber I cannot read it all online. The caboose was built as  

> Virginian hack 315 in 1947 and served the Virginian and N&W proudly  

> until it was donated to the Village of Ashville by NS in the early  

> 80's. After donation it was moved to it's own track adjacent to  

> Ashville's former N&W/Scioto Valley depot where it sat until this  

> week With the caboose being in relatively good condition, except for  

> a few windows etc, I am quite shocked how it got to this.

>

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