Freight hog 611? Norfolk & Western 611 chugs slowly through the north end of the yard in Spencer, NC, hauling a short mixed freight. It almost seems to be heresy that the "ultimate steam locomotive" should have ever been relegated to freight service, but for a short time before their retirement, the Js were indeed used on freight trains. In the late 1950s, the N&W began leasing cab units from the Atlantic Coast Line and these soon proved cleaner, more efficient and less maintenance-intensive than steam locomotives. At the time, the last of the Js were less than 10 years old and still had plenty of life left in them. So like many railroads before them, the N&W pulled the steamers off the passenger operations and relegated them to freight service....for at least a short time. When 611 was brought out of retirement in 2015, and ran her first photo charter at the North Carolina Transportation Museum, the organizers made it a point to give the assembled photographers a look at how these beautiful machines spent the last days of their working lives.
