C&O 614
Built in June of 1948 by Lima for the C&O, this 4-8-4 "Greenbriar" was the last commercially produced 4-8-4 to be built. It was built to pull the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway’s premier express passenger trains, The George Washington and The Fast Flying Virginian between Richmond and Chicago over the eastern continental divide formed by the Allegheny Mountains.
Being produced so late into the steam era, the locomotive sported many of the latest & greatest features that could be found, like roller bearing drivers & rods to name a couple, allowing it to be an instant success. Its reliability, power and speed enabled the railroad to increase the size of the trains it pulled and at the same time shortened scheduled running times between destinations. Despite the success of the design, though, the transition to diesel was already well underway & it was put into storage in 1952 in a Kentucky roundhouse, where she sat for more than two decades. In the fall of 1956, before it was official retired, it was actually renumbered 611. The C&O had a power shortage and as a result, leased a number of 4-8-4’s from the RF&P, including their 614. To alleviate confusion, a paint brush and chisel were taken to the 614, since the original C&O 611 had already been retired.
In 1976, she was cosmetically restored and donated to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1979, the locomotive was sold to railroad enthusiast and entrepreneur Ross E. Rowland, Jr., who oversaw a crew of 15 mechanics and some 100 volunteers to rebuild it to operation on the Chessie Safety Express after Reading 2101 was critically damaged when the roundhouse in Silver Grove, KY it was being stored in caught on fire, damaging it to the point where it would need a complete overhaul. The project took 18 months to complete at a cost of $1.5 million. During the restoration, modifications were made to enable it to pull a 25-car passenger train all day without having to stop for any type of service.
It pulled those trips in 1980 & 1981, then sat in storage until January of 1985, when it was used as a test vehicle for the ACE 3000 project, which was Ross Rowland's attempt to design a modern steam locomotive. As part of the early testing, it was assigned to pull coal trains between Huntington & Hinton, WV for several weeks. Ultimately, the railroads decided to stay with the diesel-electric design & the project was scrapped.
The engine's most recent assignment was powering a series of excursions from Hoboken, NJ to Port Jervis, NY over NJ Transit’s Bergen County, Main and Conrail’s (now Metro-North Railroad) Southern Tier lines in the fall of 1996, 1997 & 1998. These 180 mile round-trip “Iron Horse Rambles” and “Erie Limited” excursions saw the engine pulling 25+ car trains as fast as 79mph, providing for some jaw-dropping performances. Since then though, it has sat dormant in multiple locations & has even been put up for sale at one point while Ross has made several attempts to have the engine run again. 11-5-20
C&O 614
Built in June of 1948 by Lima for the C&O, this 4-8-4 "Greenbriar" was the last commercially produced 4-8-4 to be built. It was built to pull the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway’s premier express passenger trains, The George Washington and The Fast Flying Virginian between Richmond and Chicago over the eastern continental divide formed by the Allegheny Mountains.
Being produced so late into the steam era, the locomotive sported many of the latest & greatest features that could be found, like roller bearing drivers & rods to name a couple, allowing it to be an instant success. Its reliability, power and speed enabled the railroad to increase the size of the trains it pulled and at the same time shortened scheduled running times between destinations. Despite the success of the design, though, the transition to diesel was already well underway & it was put into storage in 1952 in a Kentucky roundhouse, where she sat for more than two decades. In the fall of 1956, before it was official retired, it was actually renumbered 611. The C&O had a power shortage and as a result, leased a number of 4-8-4’s from the RF&P, including their 614. To alleviate confusion, a paint brush and chisel were taken to the 614, since the original C&O 611 had already been retired.
In 1976, she was cosmetically restored and donated to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1979, the locomotive was sold to railroad enthusiast and entrepreneur Ross E. Rowland, Jr., who oversaw a crew of 15 mechanics and some 100 volunteers to rebuild it to operation on the Chessie Safety Express after Reading 2101 was critically damaged when the roundhouse in Silver Grove, KY it was being stored in caught on fire, damaging it to the point where it would need a complete overhaul. The project took 18 months to complete at a cost of $1.5 million. During the restoration, modifications were made to enable it to pull a 25-car passenger train all day without having to stop for any type of service.
It pulled those trips in 1980 & 1981, then sat in storage until January of 1985, when it was used as a test vehicle for the ACE 3000 project, which was Ross Rowland's attempt to design a modern steam locomotive. As part of the early testing, it was assigned to pull coal trains between Huntington & Hinton, WV for several weeks. Ultimately, the railroads decided to stay with the diesel-electric design & the project was scrapped.
The engine's most recent assignment was powering a series of excursions from Hoboken, NJ to Port Jervis, NY over NJ Transit’s Bergen County, Main and Conrail’s (now Metro-North Railroad) Southern Tier lines in the fall of 1996, 1997 & 1998. These 180 mile round-trip “Iron Horse Rambles” and “Erie Limited” excursions saw the engine pulling 25+ car trains as fast as 79mph, providing for some jaw-dropping performances. Since then though, it has sat dormant in multiple locations & has even been put up for sale at one point while Ross has made several attempts to have the engine run again. 11-5-20