Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation, CSX, and R.J. Corman Railroad Group will move C&O 2-8-4 Kanawha No. 2716 beginning on Friday from the Kentucky Railway Museum at New Haven, Ky., to Kentucky Steam’s planned Heritage Center at CSX’s former Ravenna Yard at Irvine, Ky. The move is planned to take three days and will include several coinciding events, including a street festival in Midway, Ky., and an event outside of a brewery in Lexington, where a new beer brewed in honor of the 2716 will be released.
At 10 a.m. Friday, the 2716, along with an attached excursion train, will be towed from KRM by the famed former Clinchfield Railroad EMD F7 No. 800 to the museum’s connection with CSX at Lebanon Junction, Ky. The excursion, dubbed the “Heritage Highball,” will be operated by KRM and Kentucky Steam on that portion of the trip only. Once at Lebanon Junction, the 800 and 2716, along with cars specifically for the locomotive move to Ravenna, will cut off from the excursion train and the excursion will return to KRM under diesel power from the museum. The 2716 and its train will continue on and travel along the CSX Main Line Subdivision to Louisville where it will connect with R.J. Corman and travel via the former C&O Old Road Subdivision to Frankfort, Ky., where the locomotive will be displayed outside the Old Capital Building from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
On Saturday, the train will arrive at Midway, Ky., at 9:45 a.m. and the 2716 will be on display during a portion of the town’s “Heritage Day” celebration, a street festival planned specifically to celebrate the locomotive’s move and eventual restoration. The train will depart Midway at 1:15 p.m. and will arrive at Manchester Street in Lexington 75 minutes later. A three-hour event celebrating No. 2716 and a new beer brewed in its honor, the “Back on Track Steam Beer,” will begin at 3 p.m.
On Sunday, No. 2716 and its train will depart Lexington for Winchester, Ky., at 9:15 a.m. and will interchange with CSX at 11 a.m. before departing for Ravenna. The train is expected to arrive at Veterans Memorial Park in Ravenna at 3:30 p.m. and will be on display until 5 p.m.
The move is in anticipation of the restoration of 2716 to running order. Kentucky Steam plans to establish an educational and a multi-use facility on the former Ravenna Yard grounds, with 2716 — for which the group has entered into a long-term lease agreement from KRM — as its centerpiece. The group plans to operate the 75-year-old locomotive at the facility.
For more information, visit, www.kentuckysteam.org.
Interesting the route out of here in Louisville is characterized as the “former C&O Old Road Subdivision.” That would be news to the local Louisville & Nashville Railroad historians, as the track from HK tower (Anchorage KY, a suburb of Louisville) east through Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Midway to Lexington was L&N (and is now RJ Corman). The line was actually was built to bypass L&N’s longer route “the Old Road” that went from HK northeast to LaGrange, then toward Frankfort via Eminence, Pleasureville, and Christiansburg (we’re really talking small-town Kentucky here) . However, the basic confusion probably stems from the fact that for years C&O had trackage rights over this shorter L&N route and ran trains from the end of C&O track in Lexington west into Louisville; this included freights and the Louisville section of the George Washington, which split off the C&O main at Asheville KY, just out of West Virginia. OTOH, we should note that nothing as big as a C&O Berkshire normally ran into Louisville, as the Big Four (NYC) terminal they used at Preston Street had too small a turntable.
BTW, 2716 ran last week, and made its planned stops (with many photos taken by fans), and is now presumably ensconced in Ravenna, with a long enough turntable that was upgraded in the Forties to handle L&N’s “Big Emmas” (M-1 2-8-4’s) .
I have not been in Ohio in decades, but I definitely recall that there was a Chessie Kanawha in the park adjoining the Cleveland zoo. Like any piece of equipment left outside to the mercy of vandals and the weather, it was in sad shape at the time. Does anyone know what happened to it?
NKP 765 already has company..Pere Marquette 1225 at the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso,MI. While 765 and 1225 are known as Berkshires vs. The C&O term Kanawha, they are all 2-8-4s of very similar design thanks to the common ownership of the 3 roads and others around the time all of them ordered their first 2-8-4s. The differences are more along the lines of individual road’s preference of applicances/accessories and the placement of such on the locomotives, and other misc. mechanical or cosmetic details.
Great news!
NKP 765 will have some company!
Love the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement.