Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad crews, the operator of the Cass Scenic Railroad, have also installed several hundred new rivets and staybolts and renewed several dozen flexible staybolts, railroad President John Smith says.
Cass Shop workers have also installed a new stack and renewed bearings on the line shaft.
The locomotive is expected to make a debut on July 15 at the railroad’s Great Train Race celebration in Spruce. The locomotive will compete in the annual train race alongside Western Maryland EMD BL2 No. 82, a locomotive that was restored earlier in the year and debuted in Western Maryland’s fireball paint scheme.
With No. 11’s return to steam, it will join Cass Scenic Shays Nos. 2, 4, and 5 in operation at Cass this season, along with Cass Scenic Railroad Heisler No. 6 in Durbin.
Cass Shay No. 11 was built in 1923 for the Hutchinson Lumber Company of Feather Falls, Calif. The locomotive would spend much of the mid-20th century in the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in San Diego before heading to Cass in 1997.
Mr.Gerald McFarlane should learn the fact before he makes wild post. Steam locomotives on insular track do not come under FRA and did not need form 4, and this was just the case for the D&G Climax locomotive that has been operating for years on the Durbin Rocket. That Climax never got a Form 4 since it was moved down to Durbin, WV from the trolley museum in Connecticut years ago. Only because they want to run it on Cass to Durbin line is it in the Cass shop to receive it’s first Form 4. But the entire Cass-Bald Knob, Durbin, Spruce, lines should be insular by closing one crossing and bridging over the other on the revenue portion of Cass. The DH engine movements over the Cass station crossing does not count as a crossing. Presently, the two road crossings on CSR are not in the FRA jurisdiction as they have never identified having any jurisdiction of train movements over Cass Scenic RR (former Mower Lumber Co. trackage.). It was run by the State so they never found the need to identify the line under their jurisdiction, and since it is a non-commerce line should not come under any Federal authority as that is a state right issue.
Not too many places in the US where you can find 5 operable steam engines. I also didn’t see any mention of the WM Shay #6 (Big Six). Is it expected back in service this year?
Thanks to John Smith. If he does not tell us, there is no way to know from this black-out area of the Wild WV. So can you tell us of the progress of rebuilding the Climax that was at Durbin but taken into the Cass Shop? And how many miles are yet to be rebuilt connecting Cass to Durbin? And what progress is done on former BC&G 2-8-0 that is intended to run on the Greenbrier line? And to get technical, why do you have to do any FRA Form 4 review on any locomotive that runs over the former Mower Lumber Co. track as the FRA has never extended jurisdiction over those tracks. Is it only because the Mower engines crossed over the C&O Greenbrier line to get into the mill pond. This trackage from Spruce or High Falls connection all the way via Cass to Durbin should be disconnected from the national interconnected lines of commerce as there is no freight or common-carrier commerce on those lines. All the Cass engines should not have to come under Form 4 in the same manner that the Climax was used at Durbin for years, exempt, Insular.
As I understand the FRA definitions, your “back yard railroad” is exempt as long as you don’t have public highways crossing your tracks. That is why the East Broad Top was required to meet FRA rules for their steam engine overhaul a few years ago since the railroad is otherwise isolated.
Just don’t get there on a Tuesday. I live in Fl., camped and drove around W.Va. Drove many, brake wearing back roads to get there. The RR, and seemingly most of the town is closed on Tuesdays. Check schedules. I will return.
I believe it was a crown sheet failure on ex-CP Pacific 1278 operating on the Gettysburg Railroad in 1995 that made the FRA Form 4 mandatory.
@W Cook, the FRA Form 4 applies to ALL steam locomotive rebuilds, that was part of the revision of steam rules after the incident on the Great Smoky Mountain…so even if you wanted to rebuild a locomotive to run in your own back yard you would have to do a Form 4.