CCR #1 has a little known sister engine, CCR #3, seen here. She's oddly dressed up to represent an Illinois Central engine numbered as 382 falsely representing the engine that pulled the passenger train, the Cannonball Express, which collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night which was engineered by none other then "Casey" Jones. Better watch your step! And now you know even more!
|
I got to ride the bridge plate and shovel some coal on this one many years ago. She rode pretty hard, thump, thump, thump all the way.
|
| Posted by on December 13, 2014 | |
Very nice, Mitch. Good research! Erwin never really took the engine anywhere. It just rusted away behind the shop until T.D.Moore became the Clinchfield general manager. He asked CMO P.O.Likens if he could rebuild it. Likens gave him a conditional "yes," with several challenges that he would have to overcome. Moore then told him: "do it..." True story. Although the Clinchfield was jointly owned by ACL and the L&N, Moore had a considerable amount of autonomy. I don't think the powers that be in Jacksonville and Louisville were particularly jumping up and down when he launched into this project, but they didn't say no. The only thing that derailed it: Moore and two other officials were indicted and eventually convicted of fraud in 1979 and '80. In anticipation of ramping up the steam program another throttle notch, Moore had leased ex-C&O Kanawha 2716 and brought it to Erwin for rebuild. When the do-do hit the fan, the pin was pulled on the excursion program immediately, and the 2716 project was over. The One Spot went to Baltimore not long after that (after heading to Louisville in 1980 for the 75th anniversary of L&N's South Louisville Shops---a facility that doesn't even exist today!). For sure, this engine is a SURVIVOR! It reportedly was used to help bring in help to Johnstown, PA after the infamous flood in 1889.
|
|