Waiting in the wings to take her place in the steam locomotive rotation at the Valley Railroad is this 22-year old Chinese SY. Purchased at the 2008 Knox & Kane auction, this locomotive was a derelict when the Valley acquired her. She'd been run hard at the K&K and then damaged pretty seriously in the engine house fire that doomed the line. Valley CMO J. David Conrad went after this engine because his line was facing a potential power shortage. With faithful Old 97 going down in 2010 for an extended rebuild, he'd have only one steam engine left without a 3rd locomotive. Given the option of bidding on this engine, or the less heavily damaged Huntingdon & Broadtop Mountain engine, Mr. Conrad opted for youth. There are just not many 22-year old Mikados around! Over the course of the last year and a half, the locomotive has been extensively cleaned up. Her boiler has been surveyed, her flues have been replaced and a lot of work has been done on various parts of the running gear. The loco's tender has also been rebuilt and can be seen here. The Valley hopes to perform a hydrostatic test on her in the spring and if that goes well, the re-assembly process will start. Purists who would rather not see a foreign-looking locomotive running the old New Haven tracks need not fear. When the rebuild on the SY is complete, she'll look anything but Chinese. The Valley folks are rebuilding her to look as much as possible like a New Haven Class J-1. She'll have a brand new, low-profile cab with arched windows, a clear-vision style tender, a Sunbeam Headlight....even a New Haven whistle. Initially, she'll also be lettered as a New Haven engine. No one is yet able to forecast when this engine will be ready, but the line would clearly like to have her operational sometime this year and the crews are clearly looking forward to the day. If all goes well, this could be a pretty exciting year in Essex, CT. Photo taken with the kind permission of the railroad crew.
