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Article in today's Roanoke Times.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.roanoke.com/212957" eudora="autourl">
http://www.roanoke.com/212957</a><br><br>
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<h1><b>The short history of a 'handy engine'<br><br>
</b></h1>By Kevin Kitredge | The Roanoke Times<br>
<img src="http://www.roanoke.com/dtiphotos/3386268.jpg" width=230 height=153 alt="An old Class M-2 N&W Steam locomotive is being saved from t">
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Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times<br><br>
An old Class M-2 N&W Steam locomotive is being saved from the Roanoke
Scrap Yard after sitting dormant since being retired in the 1950''s. The
1151 is owned by the Virginia Museum of Transportation.<br><br>
The historic, Roanoke-made steam locomotive soon to come to the Virginia
Museum of Transportation will probably never have the star quality of the
museum's prized steam behemoths -- the class J 611 and class A 1218.
<br><br>
The class M2 1151, to move to the museum from a Roanoke scrap yard
sometime in the next few weeks, was eclipsed for its original purpose
almost as soon as it was built. Designed to haul freight trains over the
mountains, it was soon supplanted by the new Mallets (pronounced
"mal-ays"), named after the Swiss designer Anatole Mallet. The
Mallets had front wheels that swung on a hinge pin, allowing the
locomotive to better negotiate curves. This allowed for the building of
bigger and stronger locomotives. <br><br>
With the coming of the Mallets, the 1151 and all its class M2 brethren
were relegated to secondary freight service and rail yard duty, Norfolk
and Western Railway historians say. "In 1912 they started getting
the Mallet engines," said Lewis "Bud" Jeffries, author of
"N&W: Giant of Steam." <br><br>
The coming of the Mallets "totally eclipsed the M2s," Jeffries
said.<br><br>
And yet, like any steam locomotive nowadays, the 1151 still evokes a
vanished time, when railroading was synonymous with the chug of pistons
and a plume of steam.<br><br>
"I think to us, the main thing is seeing an artifact made by the
talents and energy of the citizens of the Roanoke Valley," said Bev
Fitzpatrick, executive director of the transportation museum. "It is
a legacy that helps us tell our visitors a story about the men of the
Norfolk and Western."<br><br>
'Quickly outmoded'<br><br>
Made in Roanoke's East End shops in 1911, the 1151 was one of 61 M2 class
engines that N&W acquired or built. The first 50 were made by Baldwin
Locomotive Works in Pennsylvania. Then N&W took over and made 11
more, numbered 1150 through 1160.<br><br>
All of the Roanoke M2 locomotives were made between April 1911 and April
1912, according to Jeffries' book.<br><br>
The locomotives were intended to haul freight trains over the Blue Ridge
Mountains. They often ran "doubleheaded," with two engines
hooked up one behind the other, for more power. Sometimes a third
locomotive was employed as a pusher, to help get trains up the steepest
grades.<br><br>
When the railway acquired them, the M2s were bigger and more powerful
than anything else they had. <br><br>
"It was a big improvement when it arrived, but it was quickly
outmoded," said Gordon Hamilton, a retired railroad worker and
member of the Norfolk and Western Historical Society.<br><br>
By 1912, the new class Z Mallet engines had become the railroad's first
choice for hauling heavy freight, according to Jeffries' book. The M2s,
meanwhile, were considered "too light for heavy work and too heavy
for light work. ... That the M2 reign was short lived is an
understatement," Jeffries writes.<br><br>
Still, the railroad kept using the M2s into the 1950s on short hauls and
switch yard work, said Louis Newton, a retired railroad employee who has
written several books about N&W.<br><br>
"They found uses for them," Newton said. "They were always
a handy engine to have around."<br><br>
Little is known about where the 1151 was used. Jeffries said the M2s were
often used in the flatter Norfolk division of the railroad after the
arrival of the Mallets, and then in railyards as switch engines.
"They were adequate for that."<br><br>
The engine was finally scrapped in June 1950, Jeffries said. Plans are
for it to be cut into pieces and loaded onto a trailer for the short trek
to the museum in a week or two, probably during the night, Fitzpatrick
said.<br><br>
The museum will store it outside its railyard, protected from the
elements, until it can restore it to something resembling its original
condition -- a job that will require refashioning some missing
parts.<br><br>
Two other M2 locomotives in the scrap yard, both made by Baldwin, will go
to a new railroad museum in Portsmouth and to Goshen lumber yard owner
Will Harris, who is doing all the moving. <br>
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