SOU 4501 update

[dredmann]

Please forgive me if this has already been posted, but I just received the fourth quarter 2008 issue of TVRM's official newsletter Smoke & Cinders, and it contains an update on ex-Southern Railway 4501, the 2-8-2 that was the original star of the Southern steam program. Highlights: "Southern #4501 has been in the midst of a general inspection to check for the feasibility of future operation. . . . [T]he boiler jacketing and insulation was [sic] removed along with all tubes & flues, firebox grates, smokebox front, and appliances. . . . Although the final paperwork is not yet available, no major concerns turned up . . . ."

I would very much like to see 4501 hit the high iron for her hundredth birthday party in October 2011. Although that's probably optimistic, I wouldn't call it impossible. But TVRM has to puts its main effort behing finishing the restoration of ex-SOU 630, to have an every-day locomotive when ex-USATC 610 has to be taken out of service for its "Form 4" major boiler inspection after this year's operations.

 

[Deggesty]

Thanks for the information about the two engines; I rode behind them, and 722, several times, out of Birmingham. My favorite ride was from Atlanta to Birmingham in December of 1970, when the 722 and the 630 were doubleheaded as they were being moved to Birmingham for shopping, and I was invited up by 722's engineer in Anniston, to ride the rest of the way to Birmingham.

Johnny

 

[SR6900]

I'd love to see her done, too, but I doubt it will happen. I just hope she'll at least be in the shop by then. I can't wait for the 630 though, she's looking good, but there's quite a bit of work (so it looks to me). I've been learning how to fire in the 610 and you can tell she's about ready for some rest. The air pump is sounding really bad, it's wanting to double stroke and making some really disturbing noises when one of the cylinders doesn't want to compress.

 

Kyle

[mogadad]

 

Her years after the Southern, dragging frieght sealed her fate. Her frame is bent badly which is why NS washed their hands of her and sent her back. She runs like a badly aligned car, crabbing towards one side. She is in too bad of shape and too big for anyone to rationally restore her for tourist operations.

[SR6900]

I wouldn't say she's in to bad of shape to restore, but she's definitely too big for current need. I've never heard anything about a bent frame. If I remember right NS used her until the end of the steam program. If she was actually that bad, I'm quite positive TVRM wouldn't have run her for 4 years after the steam program. Are you sure that isn't one of the tons of false rumors spread by people who don't know what they're talking about?

[dredmann]

Kyle, I feel your air pump pain. For a while we experienced no end of air pump grief on our local Mike, ex-Southern Pacific 745. During a 2005 tour of Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi, the air pump totally gave up the ghost in Shreveport. Fortunately the generous folks at the Austin Steam Train Association lent the Louisiana Steam Train Association the air pump from their sister locomotive, ex-Southern Pacific 786, and the tour continued. At the end of the day, rebuilding 745's air pump was no minor task.

[dredmann]

I'm sure we'd all appreciate your source(s) for the allegation that SOU 4501 has frame damage that makes her essentially unusable. Having personally (1) examined her (admittedly not in depth) in 2006, (2) spoken with more than one person who ran her (both in the Southern steam program and at TVRM), (3) exchanged correspondence about her in recent years with high levels within NS, (4) exchanged correspondence about her in the last year with people at TVRM, and (5) read pretty much the whole history of her Southern operation in Jim Wrinn's book, I have never heard anything like this claim.

Dragging freight, by itself, should not bend a locomotive's frame. Where a frame is or was bent, it was likely damaged in a collision or built bent.

As to NS sending her back, NS ran her in several stints, as her maintenance needs and their locomotive needs developed over time. They ran her at least at late as 1991, and TVRM ran her as late as 1998. Some of those TVRM runs were not three-miles-and-back, but longer excursions. I'd submit that the main reason NS had little use for 4501 in the last years of its steam program is that N&W 611, and at times N&W 1218, were on the whole far more capable locomotives (e.g., being 39 and 32 years newer, having rated tractive efforts 48% and 112% higher, developing much higher power, and being capable of safely running 29+ and 20 mph faster).

And to say that NS "sent her back" ignores the fact that she was always leased, and therefore presumably always to go back one day. Southern last owned 4501 in 1948. Paul Merriman (co-founder of TVRM) bought her in 1964 or so. Old Southern publicity info on 4501 in my collection says quite clearly that she was the "personal property of Paul Merriman". (At some point Merriman donated or sold 4501 to TVRM.)

No doubt steam locomotives--especially older ones with built-up frames--can have alignment issues. No doubt 4501 needs work. No doubt 4501 is not the most economical locomotive for TVRM to operate as its day-to-day steam power. But this is a rather sensational allegation that merits further response and investigation, if possible.