2144 explosion (NW Mailing List)

[NW Mailing List]

The report Jeff posted sounds about right.  I have a detailed report  
of this somewhere here, given to me by the late Tom Dressler of  
Portsmouth, Ohio.  He was a N&W historical society member.  This  
section of railroad is on an eastbound grade by the way.  Tom sent me  
a photo and stated that back in the 80's he had taken the photo and it  
showed a pipe stuck in the side of a telephone poll near the location  
of the explosion.  I don't know if it is still there or not.  There is  
an Eastwood road that runs between 0ld 74(Which would have been the  
main road at the time), and state route 32.

The 2144 was before I was old enough to know about it and I think it  
was before my folks moved us to Batavia.  I do remember(And dad has  
movies), or a Y class struggling toward to top of Batavia HIll near  
Afton, Ohio.  It had a very leaky cylinder on the engineers side.  As  
the train got closer the engineer was waving us away from the track.   
Dad got one shot of this at least.  This must have been 1954-56, as  
steam freights ended half way through 1956.

Greg Scholl
http://www.gregschollvideo.com