Chili 5-way!
Chili 5-way!
There's also a couple of the really neat Alco/MLW-Worthington DL-535E diesels that have come south to America. White Pass & Yukon originally dieselized with some weird shovel-nosed, Alco-powered boxcab GEs in the mid-'50s. By the late 1960s, they needed additional power, and they placed an order for seven 6-axle, 1200hp DL-535Es from Alco based on the popular DL-535 export locomotive, #101-#107. One key difference, however, is that the DL-535 export features a high short hood whereas the White Pass DL-535E features a more traditional North American-style low short hood. Looking like a mini C420, these had a 1200hp inline-6 turbocharged Alco 251D engine. Alco got partway through building the locomotives, and then abruptly went out of business, so the partially-constructed locomotives were shipped by flat car to Montreal and completed by still-extant Canadian subsidiary MLW-Worthington. The locomotives were then shipped west to Alaska. No sooner had the railroad receiving its new power on October 15, 1969, the #102 and #105 met their end before ever turning a wheel in revenue service when they were trapped inside the Skagway roundhouse as it burned to the ground. They were never repaired and scrapped in 1993. The five remaining engines performed well enough that WP&Y returned for an additional three, #108-#110, in 1971.
In July 1982, the WP&Y ordered an additional four units, to be #111-#114, and to be built by Bombardier, who had taken over MLW by this point. Mechanically, these later units were identical to the earlier unit, but they were to use a wide cab like an MLW M420W or a Bombardier HR412 instead of the traditional standard cab of the first ten. Three of these units were ultimately never delivered to them, due to Cyprus Anvil Mining abruptly closing the Faro Mine which resulted in shuttering of the railroad. They were eventually placed in storage and then two were sold in 1991 to US Gypsum in Plaster City, CA. US Gypsum first purchased #112 and #113 in 1991 and, after the wreck of #113 in 1992, they also acquired #111 as its replacement in 1993.
By 1992, the WP&Y reopened as a tourist line, due to the rise of Alaskan cruise lines, and they took delivery of the #114, but, since its ore-hauling days were over, it was flush with motive power and the decision was made to sell the first batch of DL-535Es. The unique locomotives caught the interest of Sociedad Colombiana de Transport Ferroviaro, the National Railway of Colombia and #101,# 103, #104, #106, and #107 were sold and loaded on a barge destined for South America. This lasted only a few years, however, when additional tourist trains created the need for more motive power. In 1999, for a second time, a deal was struck with SCdeTF to buy back all five DL535s and barge them back to Alaska.
In recent years, WP&Y has taken delivery of new 3000hp GE locomotives, and the old DL-535Es went up for sale again. The #101, #103, #106, and #107 were sold again, this time to the Durango & Silverton for use on MoW trains and during times of high fire risk. D&S had ordered two narrow gauge diesels that were built from regauged EMD F40PHL-2s, but the builder went out of business before they were completed, and the designs were so fundamentally flawed that it was determined there was no way to make them work. On November 11, 2023, Cumbres & Toltec announced they were acquiring the wide-cab #114, also for MoW use, and it was shipped to Antonito, Colorado. That leaves #104, #108, #109 and #110 stored up at Alaska, while #101, #103, #106, and #107 are at D&S, #111 and #112 are at US Gypsum, and #114 is at C&T.
D&S seems to run them in pairs. as seen here when I was out there last summer.
Wow, thanks for the history lesson there. Amazing how many locomotives went back and forth to Alaska over the years.
We rode up on a weekday morning having driven in from Whitehorse where my in-laws live so were the odd ducks that weren't coming in from a cruise ship (maybe two in the harbour that day). The steam train we were on was pulling 3 carriages all original to the railway from the late 1800's, from memory there were at least 3 more diesel's going up at the same time spaced out all pulling quite a few more carriages than us (10 ish). I know after lunch they did it all again with new passengers. Our train went to the turn around at Fraser BC (that's where the Canadian border crossing is even though you're about 8 miles from the actual border at the summit) so they could bring the locomotive back to the front for the trip back down.
Here's one of the diesel's going past while were on a siding at the summit.
This is from 2019 when we happened to be visiting Carcross, YT as the train pulled in over the swing bridge. Currently this is as far as they go even though the tracks are still there, unused and unmaintained all the way to Whitehorse (there is a section along the Yukon river that they run a small electric trolley on pulling a generator behind it).
adam525i said:Here's one of the diesel's going past while were on a siding at the summit.
That's one of the even earlier 90-series GE shovelnoses, referred to as an X3341. Those were built in '54 and '56 by GE but using 800hp Alco 6-251A engines (Alco and GE were partnered still, but GE was turning out their own line of engines, often using Alco engines). Around 2010 or so, WP&Y had them rebuilt with 1,450hp Cummins QSK45L prime movers by Sygnet Rail Technologies, but they were put up for sale by WP&Y in 2022 when they also put the DL-535Es up for sale, with the arrival of the new 3000hp NRE E-3000E3Bs
The big thing is that, on top of being 60-70 years newer, the new engines are rated at 3000hp from a EMD 16-645, which allows a 2-1 replacement of the rebuilt GEs, and nearly a 3-1 replacement of the DL-535Es
adam525i said:Wow, thanks for the history lesson there. Amazing how many locomotives went back and forth to Alaska over the years.
I'd love to see photos of the two ET&WNC ("Tweetsie") 4-6-0s, #10 and #14, up at Alaska but I don't believe they ran much (on top of the fact that there weren't railfans traveling to Alaska during WWII to go photograph the WP&Y). I found an old post on Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum that supposedly had a link to photos of them as USA #10 and US #14, but it was from 2003 and 22 years of link decay have rendered it inaccessible. All records now show that #10 and #14 were purchased in '42 by the US Army and moved to Alaska, were used as yard engines and helper engines on the hill out of Whitehorse, and then damaged in the 1943 roundhouse fire in Whitehorse. When #61 was dug up out of the banks of the Skagway River, after having been dumped there in '49, a "a similar 4-6-0" was dragged out of the river at the same time. Some leap to the conclusion that it was Tweetsie #10 or #14, especially since Tweetsie RR steam guru Frank Coffey claimed he stood on the remains of either engine in his 50s visit to Skagway to eventually purchase # 190 for the North Carolina park. It seems like Mr. Coffey may have been mistaken though, since all records show that #10 and #14, after being damaged in the 1943 roundhouse fire in Whitehorse, were scrapped at the Northern Pacific dead line at Auburn, WA after the war. The same place that everything not left at Alaska met it's demise. The "similar 4-6-0" dug out of the river bank was probably WP&Y 4-6-0 #62, the sister engine to #61, also marked as being dumped in the riverbank as riprap.
There are a few, very few, of the seven D&RGW K-28s that went up to Alaska, renumbered to USA #250-#256 (#471, #472, #474, #475, #477, #479).
As a wild note, the #474 (USA #253) entered service after the rest because it fell off the barge into the bay at Haines, Alaska and had to be retrieved and repaired. The US Army reportedly wanted all ten of the K-28s, and the D&RGW was not keen on that idea and tried to instead get them to take the remaining K-27s (#452, #453, #454, #455, #457, #461, #462, #463, #464) which were mostly puttering around as yard switchers or were in use on the spindly Rio Grande Southern. The US Army was not interested in the K-27s, because they were too old, too worn-out, too beat up, and weren't really standardized. A number of upgrades over the years had left the K-27s with a dizzying combinations of features and arrangements. The US Army wanted "big" modern narrow gauge power, with most of the other stuff they acquired just too small and light and old to be worth much more than helper or switcher engines. D&RGW and the Army instead settled for selling 7 of the K-28s, and then the Army acquired the 42" gauge S-118s and had them regauged to 36" and shipped up to Alaska. The D&RGW was reluctant to hand off the K-28s, since they were outfitted for passenger service, could go anywhere on the system, and they likely got their way because the D&RGW was vital to the war effort, due to the CF&I coal mine at Crested Butte, which was at one time the largest coal mine in the state and even by WWII was still one of the largest.
In 1944, with the Alcan Highway complete, the US Army relinquished control of the WP&Y, and the excess power, including the K-28s, were all retired and moved to Auburn, Washington in 1944 by the US Army. All seven were offered for sale by the USA, but there were no buyers (Rio Grande, White Pass, EBT, or anyone else) and they were eventually scrapped while still owned by the US Army. There was no market for used heavy narrow gauge power in post WWII US, since the writing was on the wall for narrow gauge and for steam. By 1946, the K-28s, along with anything shipped back to Washington, were scrapped. You can see the #250 and #251, sans tender, and it looks like it's front-coupled to USA #23, a Silverton Northern Railroad 2-8-0. An interesting observation is that if D&RGW had sold all the K-27s or all the K-28s to the US Army, there very likely wouldn't be any survivors of one class or another. If the three K-28s had not been retained by the D&RGW, I would guess that no K-28's would have survived into the 1950s with all the K-27s being kept around for loan to the RGS, and if more of the K-28ss had remained in Colorado, the two remaining K-27s might never have happened. Most likely scrapped not long after the RGS scrapping. Five K-28s could have handled the Silverton and Farmington branches with the K-36s and K-37s on the mainline to Alamosa. It was extremely good luck to have members of both the K27 and K28 classes remaining in existence today.
I've read some accounts saying that the inboard-frame K-28s didn't work well up to Alaska because those big divorced counterweights swinging around outside the railhead were prone to climbing up on ice built up along the railroad and derailing them. A gentleman named Casey Carlson actually interviewed some 770th Engineer Company vets on operations of the #190s (USATC S-118s) and #250s (D&RGW K-28s), along with mentions of the #80/#81 (Sumpter Valley 2-8-0s).
First up is Maxwell Sheif, an engineman with the 770th. Interview 1-15-06.
(CC) Do you remember the #80 or #81?
(MS) Yeah, I thought it was #88 but I guess it was the #81. I remember one time I had to clean her fire...must have been every two miles all the way up the hill. Us firemen didn't much like her because she was a bitch to fire. You never got to sit down once you left Skagway with her. As soon as you shoveled it in, it was out the stack! But part of the problem was the coal. They'd truck it from the ship to the airfield, then dump it and bulldoze it into a pile. By the time we got it, it was mostly bad dust.
(CC) That makes it tough alright.
(MS) Now you take those Army engines (the 190's). You could get a good heel in the corners and rear and by the time you were a third of the way up the hill you could sit down.
(CC) Do you remember working on the 250 class?
(MS) Gosh, I'm 84 now, but yeah I do remember the 250. It wasn't too bad of an engine. But compared to the Army engines, by God, those 190's were good.
Next up is Frank Larcomb, interviewed in 2005.
(CC) So you were a machinist?
(FL) Yeah, I was a machinist. George Rapuzzi, Koploski, and me. During the big snowstorm I worked in the machine shop for 36 hours. I'd throw some waste against a vise and grab a little sleep. But lots of coffee helped of course!
(CC) You had to keep working because they kept breaking parts out-
(FL) Yeah. The rotaries would hit something and ruin their machinery. Had to keep the rotaries going!
(CC) Were you pretty well equipped in the shop up there?
(FL) What we didn't have, we improvised. We got along wonderfully.
(CC) Made do with what you had, and made what you didn't have.
(FL) Exactly. I was 21 and had previous experience on the Pennsy, so that helped. We turned tires, bored wheels out for the car shop, turned axles...we did pretty good for a bunch of kids really.
(CC) Do you remember working on the #4, the Skagway switcher?
(FL) That damn thing just kept running. A little fella ran her, and she was his baby.
(CC) Tough engine, huh?
(FL) Yeah. I'll tell you a good one. We had an ol' boy from Arkansas, and they were working on a locomotive. Working on the pops. This guy went and lit a fire in her. Next thing you know, she had 300 pounds of pressure!
(CC) That's not good.
(FL) No, not at all. So, one of the guys went up and opened the valve on top of the boiler. You probably could have kicked her side and she would have blown up!
(CC) Was that on one of the Rio Grande engines, or one of the 190's?
(FL) I think it was on one of the 190's. Boy, those Rio Grande engines sure were low to the ground. They'd just roll up the hill.
(CC) Kind of waddled.
(FL) Yeah!
(CC) Did you know Alex Gotoski?
(FL) Yeah! He and I used to stay in the same Quanset Hut.
(CC) You bunked in a Quanset Hut?
(FL) They put me in a tent at -20 below when I first got up there and I caught pnuemonia!
02Pilot said:
D&S seems to run them in pairs. as seen here when I was out there last summer.
Odd, considering tthe DL-535E is rated at 43,200lbs of starting tractive effort and 64,200lbs continuous, while the strongest steam locomotive they have, K-37 #493, is rated for approximately 37,000lbs (MiKado, 37,000lbs). I'm guessing to keep wear and tear down on them, since you can't just have a blacksmith hammer out new parts like a steam locomotive, and so that they don't have to spend time turning them.
The US Gypsum operation that I mentioned is noteworthy in that it's the last narrow gauge freight railroad in the US. WP&Y hasn't hauled freight since the 1982 shutdown, the East Broad Top ended freight operations in 1956, and the last D&RGW narrow gauge revenue freight was in 1968. The US Gypsum mine line runs north from Plaster City, named for US Gypsum's primary use, to a quarry in the Fish Creek Mountains, which is estimated to contain a deposit worth 25 million tons of gypsum. Constructed in 1922 by a San Diegan pharmacist, it's been 36" gauge for 103 years now. It dieselized in '47, although the early diesels were problematic enough that it leased Southern Pacific narrow gauge "Slim Princess" 4-6-0 #8 for several months in 1949, followed by a hurrah for steam in June 1952, when SP 4-6-0 #9 pinch-hit for an ailing Whitcomb diesel. They of course received the aforementioned Bombardier DL-535Es in 1991 and 1993, and they still wear the pilot plows that were installed for use up in the Yukon.
The #111 in the old solid blue paint, proving that even though it's small, it's still an Alco. The open front cab door is standard procedure, for ventilation.
Duke said:
Always amuses me how this photo gets bandied around online as "abandoned train." Abandoned, eh? So why are the headlights and ditch lights on, and why's there a crew in hi-vis garb in the cab.
That's interesting that you talk about some of the engines being dumped in the riverbank near Skagway. Just as you get rolling out of town they point out an engine on it's side mostly in the ground just off the line and explain that when they were done with them they'd just dump them there and bury them. At some point more recently they needed parts (apparently) so they dug one up to pull something off and that is the one you can see as you roll by. I don't recall seeing the river (it's been over ten years) at that point but I would guess they were dropped there specifically to shore up the line from the river below.
You should really get up there, the views are spectacular carving your way up the valleys, through a cuts in the cliff face and tunnels through outcrops. The change in landscape is dramatic too from lush forest down by Skagway to more of an Alpine setting as you get near the top of the pass, as you go over it changes into an environment that seems otherworldly, lots of bare rock, moss and tiny scragly plants and trees that have a very short growing season and tough winters buried under snow. You get good views of the line ahead and behind too so bring a good lense and you'll be able to shoot the other trains making their way up.
Since you obviously like steam the Dutches is in Carcross on display and in Whitehorse you can tour the SS Klondike, the largest of the paddle wheelers. The Yukon Transportation museum is cool too, they have one of the LeTourneau overland trains out front (the other in the north is outside of Fairbanks Alaska along the highway).
NickD said:The US Gypsum operation... dieselized in '47, although the early diesels were problematic enough that it leased Southern Pacific narrow gauge "Slim Princess" 4-6-0 #8 for several months in 1949, followed by a hurrah for steam in June 1952, when SP 4-6-0 #9 pinch-hit for an ailing Whitcomb diesel.
I thought I had a book mentioning this, and dug through my collection, and it was Richard Steinheimer's Backwoods Railroads of the West. He mentions it being spring of '53, and the usual six-axle GE was out of service with a major failure, so a side-rod Whitcomb was put in service. The Whitcomb began showing signs of failure, and the stockpile of raw gypsum was running low, so they rang up Southern Pacific, who moved 4-6-0 #9 by flatcar from the remnants of the Carson & Colorado in the Owens Valley to Plaster City, and the nearby San Diego & Arizona Eastern supplied steam-trained crews.
Steinheimer notes that the #9 was "as cantankerous as a desert burro", and says that US Gypsum had removed their steam servicing facilities, so water fill-ups were a lengthy affair handled by a fire hose.
Steinheimer also states something you won't find elsewhere when searching US Gypsum: THE RAILROAD RAN THROUGH A US NAVY AERIAL GUNNERY RANGE. He says "Perhaps the most memorable event cane one moonlit evening returning from the mine. The #9 was on the point, with its pale yellow light projecting ahead; the ore train began crossing the portion of the gunnery range. Suddenly there were planes overhead; huge aerial flares dropped and the air was filled with sounds of guns and rockets. Terrified, the crew extinguished the headlight and, as can be guessed, established a new world speed record for 44-inch steam wheels!"
In reply to NickD :
I looked at Google earth after your 1st USGypsum post to see where Plaster City is. No wonder they run with the front door open! That is one of the least habitable parts of the entire planet. Really should have true A/C and automatic coupling for the crew's sake. Steam in the summer there, ugh...
I was kind of shocked to log onto Facebook and see this bit of news.
The Finger Lakes Railway's four ex-CN/VIA coaches were all spotted in the Geneva, NY yard hooked to the back of GS-2 (Geneva-Solvay road freight), and all wearing ADIX reporting marks, which is Adirondack Railroad. So, it appears that Finger Lakes Railway, which had started getting back into passenger excursions after having not run them in a while, is now fully out of the passenger business. They had been leasing a pair of RDCs from AllEarth Rail a year or so ago, but one had a mechanical failure and AllEarth ended up selling both, along with the rest of their sizable batch of RDCs, to a prospective commuter operation up in Canada. I hear there was a change in management in FGLK which is the reason for them selling off the passenger cars. Mixed reaction to this news; sad to see that FGLK won't be running excursions anymore and that I never got to ride one, glad to see Adirondack getting more passenger equipment, and nicely kept stuff at that. It's also kind of funny that Adirondack has moved away from NYC-painted equipment and now is getting four new cars in....New York Central paint. I have to wonder if this is replacing older equipmentt that's worn out or has rust issues, or if it's just to grow the fleet.
NickD said:...sad to see that FGLK won't be running excursions anymore and that I never got to ride one...
And this is why I try to hunt down nearby operations when I travel, or ride the rare mileage when offered, or take the throttle or ride in the cab. Never know if you'll get the chance again. I've heard too many instances of people who said, "I'll ride/photograph that next year." And then next year it was gone. Management changes and decides not to run excursions anymore. The last customer on an odd or historic or scenic bit of track stops being a rail customer and the line isn't operated anymore. That cool RS-3 suffers a mechanical failure and management decides not to repair it. That long-time star steam locomotive goes down for overhaul and never comes back in service, or is parked by backroom politics. An interesting, colorful shortline gets swallowed up by Genesee & Wyoming, and all the unique motive power in unique liveries gets replaced with GP38s in G&W orange, yellow and black.
Some regrets or near misses that I personally have had, just off the top of my head:
When the opportunity presents itself, take it.
Actually a quote I had on the last page ties into the post above: "When I saw #587, #611, and #1218 at the Asheville convention, it seemed like the beginning of a steam Renaissance. The future looks rather different for those three now, especially #587." Back in '87, it seemed like the good times were there to stay. Southern had beeen running their steam program since 1966, Norfolk & Western had fired up N&W #611 in 1981, just before the NS merger, and it had been running all over the NS system with Southern #4501. Then it got even better, when NS traded some equipment to Steamtown for N&W 2-6-6-4 #1218 and moved it to their steam shops for restoration.
By the spring of 1987, you had an N&W Class J and Class A running again, frequently together. There was the big 1987 NRHS convention, where the #1218, hauling a 100-car coal train, and the #611, pulling a passenger train with convention-goers, ran side by side for miles from Roanoke to Radford, Virginia. At the 1989 convention, #1218 doubleheaded with NKP #587 from Salisbury to Asheville and even tripleheaded with #587 and #611. In June of 1990, #1218 traveled to St. Louis, where it met up with Cotton Belt #819, Frisco #1522 and UP #844 to participate in another NRHS convention, which took place at Union Station. On November 3, 1991, during Norfolk Southern's 25th anniversary of their steam program, the #1218 joined Southern #4501 and N&W #611 to triple head a 28-car passenger excursion train from Chattanooga to Atlanta. And in the midst of all that, the NS steam program was running essentially every single weekend with trips out of Roanoke.
Guys from that era said they basically took it for granted. The steam program had been running since 1966, it had the full financial backing of the NS, the authoritative backing of the Claytors, it was a media darling, and a huge hit with fans and the public. The #1218 went out of service in 1991 but NS announced that it would be back, it just needed to have some pretty extensive work to address some niggling issues (the #1218 was a pile when they got it). I guarantee there were some people that missed seeeing it run in 1991 because, "Hey, it'll be back." Or possibly even earlier thinking, "It's the NS steam program, it's not going anywhere."
And then, before the #1218's overhaul was complete, the whole NS program closed up shop in 1994, a death by a thousand cuts. Discontent among the rank-and-file NS employees, dispatching difficulties, loss of support at a managerial level, insurance costs, depletion of the passenger car fleet, an attempt to make the program self-sufficient that resulted in running the engines ragged and over-saturated the market with trips, the #1218's overhaul dragging on longer than expected and the #611 coming due for an overhaul as well, etc. And after just four years of running, th #1218 was moved back to Roanoke and has never run again.
Even further back, you had a similar deal with the CB&Q excursion program. Starting in the late '50s, the Burlington ran corporate steam excursions with over twenty different locomotives. As mechanical failures and expired boiler certificates winnowed the fleet down, it ended up with just 2-8-2 #4960 and monster O-5a 4-8-4 #5632. The #5632's boiler certificate expired in '60, but the CB&Q got a flue extension, and did the same repeatedly to keep the #5632 operational until the end of '64. It ran everywhere on the Q's system that it could possibly run, including a chartered Chicago-Denver trip by the Illini Railroad Club, and a meet with Great Western 2-10-0 #90 during the '63 NRHS convention. When the ICC refused to give a flue extension, the #5632 was parked and the railroad planned to end their excursion program. But, as a result of public demand to keep the steam program going, president Harry Murphy ordered for a class 3 overhaul to take place on #5632, the locomotive was moved back to the West Burlington shops for disassembly, and over $100,000 in new parts were ordered and delivered and ready to be installed. And then on July 1, 1965, Harry Murphy retired from his position as president of the CB&Q, his successor had no appetite for operating excursions, and the #5632 and #4960 were sold off. The #5632 never ran again, and was scrapped in 1972 (a whole different tale) and the #4960 was donated to Mid-Continent.
Some other "blink and you'll miss it" engines and operations that I'm sure people did blink and miss:
Atlanta & West Point #290 and the New Georgia Railroad: The big USRA Heavy Pacific clone was pulled out of Southeastern Railway Museum for a Georgia-sponsored operation, the New Georgia Railroad, that ran on ex-SAL and ex-Georgia Railroad CSX tracks around Atlanta. That left from Atlanta Zero Mile Post in the Underground Atlanta district and running out to Stone Mountain and around the on the park railroad, and on football weekends, they would run football specials to Athens, park across East Campus Rd. from Sanford Stadium and unload. They had Central of Georgia- and Southern-painted EMDs and Savannah & Atlanta 4-6-2 #750, and then got the #290 in running in 1989. The restoration was somewhat botched in the running gear department, and the #290 never really ran right in '89 and '90, always plagued by hot bearings that took her out of service. NS had their steam shop look at it in '91, and they got it all sorted out and it even ran a few NS corporate trips. And then in '92, the state of Georgia pulled the funding on the New Georgia Railroad, much to CSX's relief, and the #290 was sent back to SERM, where it's remained apart in the shops for decades.
Bristol & North Western and CB&Q #4960. In 1980, #4960 was leased to an excursion operator, the Bristol & North Western Railroad, in Bristol, VA. A short-lived reprieve, she entered service running out of Benham, VA, during the summer of 1981, and the B&NW went out of business in 1984. Good luck finding any real information on this extremely obscure operation, and even photos are extremely rare.
Central City Narrow Gauge and Colorado & Southern #71. Around 1987, a guy named Court Hammond relaid a mile of track on the old Colorado & Southern road bed out of Central City (actually the second time this had been done), fired up narrow gauge C&S #71, bastardized the last surviving C&S gondola to carry passengers (*wince*) and began operations. But, by 1989, the Central City Narrow Gauge was bankrupt. It's doubtful if the operation would've lasted long anyway. With the approval of gambling, much of the original right-of-way was wiped out. The #71 has been moved around aa few times, while the gondola has been left pretty much to ruin. I've read an account of a guy who said he was in the area, heard the whistle, wondered what it was, learned that someone had fired up the #71 and basically thought, "They just got started, they'll be around, I'll make time next year and hopefully they'll have extended the line." It was gone by theen.
Colorado & Southern #9 at Georgetown Loop. There was a change in operatorship, the old operators packed up their steam locomotives and left, and the new operators who took over lacked any steam locomotives. So the owners of Georgetown Loop struck a deal to restore Colorado & Southern narrow-gauge 2-6-0 #9, which they also owned, to service. It felt correct historically, and would keep steam on the Loop. There was also an imported Hawaiian narrow gauge steamer that would be operated as well. The #9's restoration was mishandled, becoming more expensive and laborious than anticipated, the imported Hawaiian engine had a failure, the #9 was pressed into service, and then without a backup engine, it was absolutely run into the ground. It lasted less than a year, then was parked and eventually traded off for the #111 that now operates at Georgetown. Again, I've read accounts of railfans who said they were passing through Georgetown, saw the #9 operating, figured that "they just got it running again, so they're be time to ride behind it and photograph in the future" and didn't hang around.
C&O #2716. Picked up by Southern, it was restored to operation and Southern-ized in '81, ran just a handful of excursions for them, then developed firebox issues. It was parked, didn't run for them again, and then was sold to Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society in 1996. They got it back in C&O garb, fired it up, and made a test run or two on freight trains. It ran just four excursions, and then the flue time expired. They'd been put in in '81 and had less than 30 run days on them, so FWRHS hoped to get an extension, made plans to overhaul the running gear and had plans to run her in '97. But the FRA inspector refused to grant flue extensions, since the FRA was talking about getting rid of them in the wake of the Gettysburg incident, and the #2716 was parked in order for FWRHS to focus their efforts on #765.
The A&WP 290 is parked in the shops to keep it out of the weather and as for the reason for it being kept in pieces is mainly due to two things. Lack of funding for an already struggling museum and no where to run a mainline high speed pacific.
The shop crew would love to work on having steam return to the state of Georgia in a mainline capacity but until NS or CSX feels compelled to allow them to run it again it won't happen.
The lack of manpower is another big factor in it staying parked. They also don't even have enough space in the main building to really display such a large engine.
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