Will Harris, board member and former president of the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, tells Trains News Wire that representatives from VMT and the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, which owns the engine and put it on loan in 2015, are “still talking” about the disposition of the 2156 once the lease expires. Harris said VMT’s lease of the massive 2-8-8-2 steam locomotive ends in May, and the museum has experienced a “very good response” and “unprecedented” interest in the Y6a since it arrived. Harris said while negotiations are ongoing, he anticipates that without an agreement, No. 2156 will return to the Midwest. “Unless something changes, and the lease is extended, it will likely go back to St. Louis,” Harris says.
Coby Ellison, curator at the National Transportation Museum, said the museum has no comment about the locomotive. He also indicated that discussions about the 2156 are ongoing.
The locomotive was leased to VMT by the St. Louis museum in May 2015 and was pulled dead-in-tow across Norfolk Southern trackage to Roanoke, arriving in time for the return of famed Class J steamer N&W No. 611 to operation in late May 2015. It was built in 1942 in Roanoke and was retired in 1959. It’s one of only two N&W 2-8-8-2s that survive. The other is at Illinois Railway Museum. The arrival of the Y6a also marked the reunion of the 611, the 2156, and N&W Class A No. 1218, the first such reunion of N&W’s three famed locomotive types built in Roanoke in more than a half-century. In exchange for the 2156, VMT loaned the National Transportation Museum its FTB diesel locomotive.
The E-8 would be a natural for the “treatment” NMT gives its collection. Outside… In the Sun… blistering heat and freezing cold… inauthentic paint and lettering.
My home is St Louis and sounds like it would be nice to leave it in VA where it started and give us the Wabash E8, which is one of the railroads that called St Louis home. Friends and I saw the 2 engines at VMT and rode behind #611 on one of her excursion trips in 2015. My favorite steamer #1522 is already here and I wish I could see her running again. My parents worked for Frisco so of course she has a special place in my heart.
Keep it in Roanoke and rebuild it to run on the high iron again.
The Wabash, along with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, had its corporate headquarters in the Railway Exchange Building in downtown St Louis. The E8 would be at home in STL just as 2156 is now in Roanoke. It would be nice to repaint the E8 in its original paint scheme.
Having seen all three Roanoke built locomotives in regular operation before they were retired and loving how well they worked for the N&W, my vote would be in favor of keeping them together in their birthplace. Magnificent specimens of the best of breed.
I agree Gary Caramella. I think the E8 and the FTB could be traded for 2156. Especially as the shop in Roanoke has been scaled back, it’s nice to have the reminder of what once happened there. The FTB is a very rare beast in an of itself, but has much more interpretive value tied to the FTA at the NMT.
I’ve been to the STL museum and it’s quite good. There is no shortage of interesting steam locos there, including a Big Boy. I agree with Gary that a Wabash E unit would be nice, if in fact VMT has it.
2156 belongs in Roanoke. Why doesn’t VMT propose a trade, give St.Louis the Wabash E unit and VMT keeps the 2156. The E unit fits better in St. Louis historically than the Y6-a does and will be a whole lot easier to move than 2156. 2156 was designed, built, operated and maintained in Roanoke; Roanoke is where she belongs.