The J is back!

May 10, 2015 2:35 PM

N&W 611 is coming back. The 4-8-4 took her first steps this week after being removed from the Roanoke Transportation Museum for a year-long rebuild, and will be headlining steam excursions in the Eastern US this summer and presumably for the next 4 years. Retired from revenue service in 1960, she was rebuilt in 1982, but fell silent again in the early 1990's. Now she's back!
posted by pjern (14 comments total)

That is a beautiful train!
posted by davros42 at 2:42 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I saw this thing standing in the Roanoke Museum a few years back and found it sad that it had been taken out of (museum train) service.

This made my day!

(of course, I also own the n-scale model of N&W 611...)
posted by Namlit at 3:22 PM on May 10, 2015

Neat. Saw that train in its museum a couple years ago and I thought it sucked that they restored it in the 80s and then parked it for good.
posted by killdevil at 3:35 PM on May 10, 2015

What a beautiful machine. The Austin Steam Train Association has run into interminable delays and complications getting the 786 back up & running, and I miss hearing its whistle.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:48 PM on May 10, 2015

This post sent me down the rabbit hole to find this fun read: Rough and Tumble Engineering. So far all that advice is just as good in a submarine engine room.
posted by ctmf at 5:13 PM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is supposed to exist in a comic book or the cover of a science fiction pulp magazine. Awesome.
posted by Atreides at 6:00 PM on May 10, 2015

A mean piece of transport, indeed. Race the Breeze.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 6:23 PM on May 10, 2015

The Federal Railroad Administration issued new safety standards for locomotive boilers in 1995. Sierra No. 3 had to be rebuilt, too.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:41 PM on May 10, 2015

Wonderful! I may have to take the kiddo to see this at some point.

(of course, I also own the n-scale model of N&W 611...)

I think a wooden train I got from Target is modeled after this train.
posted by carter at 7:26 PM on May 10, 2015

This reminds me that Granite Rock 10 came back about a month ago after getting worse than expected results on its safety inspection in 2011.
posted by ckape at 10:15 PM on May 10, 2015

It's visually smoother and cleaner than steam engines with unshrouded boilers but does that kind of streamlining make an appreciable difference in performance?
posted by jfuller at 3:52 AM on May 11, 2015

does that kind of streamlining make an appreciable difference in performance?

Not at the speeds most U.S. trains run at. I think the general consensus was that it doesn't make an appreciable difference until you reach 90 MPH. Mass and surface area and all that. Modern locomotives hit the speed limits long before they run out of horsepower.
posted by pjern at 6:07 AM on May 11, 2015

Here's a story in the Salisbury Post about the restoration that took place at the NC Transportation Museum.
posted by pappy at 6:31 AM on May 11, 2015

She is running excursions this weekend.
posted by maggieb at 6:53 PM on June 6, 2015