“All the lost engines of Roanoke have been saved,” exclaimed a very happy Beverly Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT). The “lost engines” were three steam locomotives (Norfolk & Western Class M2 Numbers 1118, 1134, and 1151), a first generation diesel locomotive (Chesapeake Western 662), along with several tenders and a flat car, which were gathering rust and dust at a Roanoke scrap yard.
Fitzpatrick says the real challenge came when people at the Virginia Scrap Iron Metal Company donated them to the Virginia Transportation Museum. How would the museum get them to the people who would preserve them, instead of scrapping them? The museum and several other groups came together in July to move the pieces of American rail history to make way for Carilion’s new medical school.
Fitzpatrick says officials with Virginia Scrap Iron could have made a lot of money had they chosen to scrap the locomotives but they didn’t, “and for that we’re grateful.”
“I think what it says is that if you work together, miracles are possible.” “Everybody assumed someday they would be scrapped. And to think, after 50-some years, that everything got saved, it’s really a miracle and we’re just glad that the Virginia Museum of Transportation had the opportunity to work with Virginia Scrap Iron because they’re really the ones that made this possible.”
The locomotives and other pieces of history were moved before the September 30th deadline, when the land was transferred to Carilion. Fitzpatrick says they weren’t sure what would happen to a fourth locomotive because they couldn’t find a home for it, but members of the Roanoke Chapter of the Railway Historical Society asked if the museum would give it to them.
“And . . .we’ll paint your diesel on the exterior [and] restore it back to its original Chesapeake Western Railway colors within two years, and we’ll be able to put a new exhibit in the Virginia Museum of Transportation with that locomotive” (a rare, 1946 Baldwin locomotive), Fitzpatrick told them.
One locomotive that is still being painted will go to the Railroad Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth. “Another one that was going to go to Goshen is now going to the Roanoke chapter of the National Railway Historical Society,” said the former city council member. The VMT made a swap with the owner of that locomotive; the one that belonged to the society and was housed in the Transportation Museum will be given to the owner.
The Museum’s locomotive and tender are behind the museum outside the fence. “Because it won’t roll, we had to put it somewhere where it wouldn’t be in the way of us having to move other exhibits,” said Fitzpatrick. All in all, “our project’s complete the way we had hoped. By putting together a partnership, we got a whole lot done and I don’t know of another partnership that’s been put together in the Roanoke Valley like this in my lifetime. I think it’s pretty cool. I think it’s a good example [of cooperation] that government could follow if they chose to.”
By Beverley Amsler