This is after the Morehead and North Folk Railroad died and was reborn in the 60's with diesel as the Morehead and Morgan Folk Railroad. The steam engines had been sold off at this point.
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| Posted by on July 5, 2011 | |
These locos were aquired in 1974-76 by C.L. Armstrong after he had purchased the former LEE CLAY Products property in 1973 which included the M&NF railroad. These four locomotives,1200,1201,1202,and 365 were purchased for 100,000 dollars after entering into an agreement with Addington Bros. mining,which had also leased some property from C.L. Armstrong to install a coal crushing tipple in Clearfield. Mr. Armstrong would be paid one dollar a ton for hauling coal to Morehead and interchange with the C&O. Approximately 200 carloads were taken to Morehead before Addington sold out to Ashland Oil Inc. because Addington had hedged their bets that the Corps of Engineers would not build Paintville lake and flood their coal land.....WRONG. After this,the 365 was sold to someone who slugged it(dont know who)and the 1200-1202 sat in the shop building except for the occasional railfan day until 1980 when Mr. Armstrong and associates started Clearfield Lumber Co. They began to ship out 2-3 carloads a week of kiln dried lumber to California and other western states,as well as shipping lumber from other area mills. Curiously,they never did ship woodchips by rail after purchasing the railroad even though the rail and conveyor were still in place at the mill on Morgan Fork. In April 1982,the old Lee Clay plant burned down and destroyed the drying kilns that were the source of traffic for the railroad. Rebuilding was slow,and by the time the mill began producing again it was early 1985. The C&O had filed for abandonment in late 84 and began pulling track in about October 85 and the rail through Morehead was gone by January 86. Thus began the slow decline of the railroad until 1989 when the internal organs of the 1202 was sold to Jimmy Mchugh of New Jersey for placement in a loco for Laclede Steel. In early 1990 James Johnson and myself began restoring what was left of the railroad and had a few railfan days and a lot of rail buffs stopping by almost daily. We enjoyed working on the little railroad and made lots of friends from around the country. Regarding 1201, it came to Clearfield as a parts source for the other two locomotives and never ran on the M&NF. All three diesels are gone now and all thats left is steam loco #12 and some rail in the yard and the bridge over Tripplet creek as seen in the photo and lots of memories of how we almost made it.
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| Posted by docol on January 12, 2012 | |
I believe 1200 is an RS-12 but 365 is DRS6-4-1500
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