I'm quite familiar with "Fort Useless," having been there a couple of times myself. Your error here is asking active duty forces for help. These days, they have a mission load like you can't possibly imagine right now.
Go to a reserve unit who might have the assets to help you out. They'd likely be far more publicity-conscious and mor ein tune with the community than active forces would be. I know what I'm talking about, I've worked with both...

Steve, What are you doing here so late on a Saturday night? You're young and single.....get a life, buddy! I've got an excuse, I'm old and divorced. Seriously, regarding the suggestion about the Army, in my other "incarnation" as a Civil War reenactor, I know a number of Reservists and Guard Members in this area. The Reserve and the National Guard in Virginia have been subject to a large number of deployments overseas including Iraq and Afghanistan. Realistically, getting these guys involved would be a tough sell. When they're home, deservedly so, they're mainly interested in spending time with family and friends. Pray for peace. When they have time on their hands, they are good candidates for extra help. (of course, getting VMT to accept help is another story..........)

Real information from an informed involved source with a rational idea of a plan. Thanks Steven. With that siding available, loading on flatcars for a fast move across the main is very practical. If not, seperating boilers from running gear and trucking.

Way too large an ambition for a broke orphan organization, but best wishes.

dave

Ye Gods! Get the local Congressional Representative down to the site, give him or her a full tour of the collection and the magnitude of the movement with full, no holds barred, presentation on the value of these locomotives to the history of the region, the state, the people of Virginia, the railroads, the coal industry, -everything. Have them contact the National Guard or the Army Corps of Engineers, or the SeaBees. You will get much more "umpph" from a Congressperson than anyone else, because these are the people who hold the strings. All these reservists and full time service people have to train, and this is as worthy a training exercise as any, plus it is focused on home rather than overseas. This is a very valuable resource, and planning out a presentation to the right individuals could pay off big time.

Mr. Smith, you might check with the local Navy Recruiter about having a Navy SeeBee detachment do a two week "ACDUTRA" event moving the equipment. An active Navy Reserve SeeBee member must perform 2 weeks of training every year. The Navy will pay travel expenses, within reason, for a member to travel to the site of the ACDUTRA. If the person at the Recruiting station throws up their hands and says they can not help then ask for the phone number and name of the Regional Office for Naval Reserve Affairs.

Being in the military you guys have to remember that PR work for us is important. The younger crowd doesn't want to join cause of the war. We are having a hard time meeting the recruitment goals. So a PR move like this would be a great idea for them. Plus it's great training. Moving the same thing during training gets old but something like this would be a great idea.
Oh I sent an e-mail to the governor of Virigina yesterday. I suggest everyone start flooding his office and he may come up with $$$$. Again good PR for him.

AF you have to stop over to the Pemberton Township Historic Trust on Ft. Dix Road and see our small collection of rolling stock. When I read about discussions on how to move equipment, I have to chuckle. Our 100 ton GE diesel was moved by jacking it up, pulling up the trucks and installing wedges to keep them up, and putting on these "snozzles" to each end. One end was put on a set of wheels and the other on a tractor. The engine was driven over the road with the wheels being a mere 6" off of the highway.

So as I said, where there is a will, there's a way.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Does anyone dispute that renting cranes of sufficient lifting capacity would be the most expensive part of removing the engines? That said, locos have been moved without them.

Supposing the aforementioned active sidings can be realigned into the scrap yard, a pit could be excavated in front of the engines, and the siding extended into the pit. Then a heavy-duty flat car could be positioned in the pit, and the engine dragged onto it by a full size Cat bulldozer, pair of log skidders, or what have you. After that its a relatively simple matter of pulling out the flatcar.

Laying the siding wouldn't be all that cheap, but it can be done with volunteers (or a Nat'l Guard or SeaBee unit) and minimal equipment - remember, back in the old days it was done by a bunch of strong guys with hand tools! The WW&F in Maine employed a Marine Reserve unit to build a new trestle, certainly they could realign a siding. Digging a pit ain't free, but a street-legal backhoe is a hell of a lot cheaper to rent than a 90-ton crane. Ditto for the log skidders.

Without seeing the sidings and how they line up you may not need to connect them. Just extend the one they are on now and get it close enough for one lift or like suggest above. just pull them onto the flat-cars. You may not need a pit just an earthen ramp. But that may take a while to do. If we could see some pictures of the siding and how they are laided out maybe an idea will come out.

Mr Pullman,
Can you get us some photos of the sidings and how they relate to each other?

Also you mentioned a gondola of parts. Have you guys inventoried everything and know what you have and don't have?

Lastly, What is your honest opinion of the engines, the steam? Can all be made into museum pieces? Or is the one with the front torched off to far gone? The first one you mention, 1118 I believe, could it be returned to service?

Thanks and let's keep our fingers crossed.

I like the way you think 3750. A pit at the end of a ramp would be the way to go. I'll bet in a previous life, you engineered the building of the pyramids. This is the kind of thinking we need nowadays. It is so easy to think of ways to spend money many do not have. It is more difficult to think of ways to accomplish a task without huge outlays of money.

Later!
Mr. Ed

If the drivers are frozen from numerous floods, I say that's a blessing. It means you can coat the track with lard and drag the engines, without having to worry about stress on the rest of the monkeyworks. Lard because it's nontoxic and easily removed.

There's an active siding! Better and better. Sounds like a route needs to be graded (bulldozer) and hundreds of feet of track built... am I wrong? A small cadre of volunteers should be able to handle that. Probably hard to get ties under the engines, but I'd shoot for 4-hook gauge rods where possible so rails don't spread or roll. The NS says they're not on track, by their standards, they're not.

Now is there anywhere suitable on the property to create a 4-foot height difference for ramping onto a flatcar? Or could the dozer just grade one? How about back at the final destination (presumably VMT)? Stacks of ties have been used in the past.

What I've described so far seems well within the capacity of even smaller railroad museums. I might speculate that a competent, trusted organizer willing to plan it without depending on NS, might just find NS full of unexpected assistance. In any case I think such a plan would gain momentum quick.

Seems to me people want this, but they're disorganized and nobody wants it "put on them"... understandable. I've heard it said that there's no shortage of interested folks in the Roanoke valley, but there's a lot of division... sounds like if you put them together, they could add up to an IRM. Honestly, given Roanoke's history, I would have expected Roanoke preservation to be "all about the shop" and giving Strasburg a good run for its money... it would be cool if that would happen. VMT even with its non-restoration status, could be an important part, as a landowner and place to store and display equipment. Now get a shop going, so that if NS ever gets out of Roanoke shops, they have the thought to donate it. Wouldn't THAT be awesome...

I will give a bit of an update on this.

We are pretty convinced rolling the engines is out of the question, they have to have evaluation, and lifting the engines to release the bearings, open them up, remove and clean everything. Standard restoration procedures. Moving the engines and the rest of the equipment is a huge job, talk has been temporary locations but I personally prefere they get moved to a location where work can get done on them easily. Friction bearings are not allowed anymore on the railroads.
There are good options on how to get the engines moved, its more like a manner of politiking and finding the right connections to get them moved.

We believe it can be done but the parties involved need to get all together all at once to help with the move.

I do not know of any time that a crane company has stepped up to assist a museum for free.

Possibly because they have a big morgage payment to make every month on the equipment.

Street cars have been moved, steam locomotives have been moved but always for large numbers of dollars.

What a great survival story! But I do not see a happy ending for it.

And also in the thread. I would like to know where the Eagle Lake locomotives were moved to? Are they in Maine?

Ted Miles

The Eagle Lake locomotives were jacked up by volunteers, who then rebuilt the tracks under them, on ballast they brought in! The locomotives remain exactly where they have been for 80 years, and safer and better off than they have been for that long. A good shed would be better, but at the minimum, somebody made a huge effort to do something themselves.

> Friction bearings are not allowed anymore on the railroads.

Another commonly propagated myth in the railfan community. The FRA banned the use of standard bearings for interchange traffic only. Class 1s can, and do on occassion, transfer equipment without them being roller bearing equipped.

Interchange is when railroad A hands off equipment, or traffic, to railroad B. What railroad A chooses to do on their own track is their business. If NS wanted to, and the equipment owner properly prepared the equipment for movement, NS could, and probably would, move the stuff to wherever they wanted to. Even to VMT.

The solution lies in getting NS to want to do it.