Monday, August 10, 2015

Prairie Dog Central to recieve two CP steam locomotives from Virginia


   Two vintage CP G5 class 4-6-2 steam locomotives are returning home to Canada. The locomotives spent over 40 years in Covington, Virginia as part of the late Jack Showalter's Virginia Central Tourist Railroad. Showalter, a tourist railroad operator and dedicated steam preservationist, died in November 2014.

    The engines have been stored on the Shenandoah Valley Railroad in Staunton, Virginia for over 15 years. The Prairie Dog Central has not purchased these locomotives. They were purchased by an Albertan, but will be stored at the PDC's shops off Inkster Boulevard. The 1238 was built in Montreal in 1946. The 1286 was built in Kingston Locomotive Works in 1948. Future operating plans for these two engines are under review by the Vintage Locomotive Society.

9 comments:

  1. Great to see these locomotives being repatriated to Canada. The PDC people will take good care of the engines.

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  2. As of August 18, 2015, the two engines, each on its own flatcar, and the two tenders, on a third flatcar, are at the Norfolk Southern Motor Yard in Bedford, Ohio, one of the Cleveland area yards. They have already been there 4 days; they spent several days at NS Enola Yard in Harrisburg, then more days in NS Conway Yard in the Pittsburg area. After the first move they are moving in 'dimension special' or 'high-wide' trains which apparently are not being run very often. At this rate it will be a very long trip to Winnipeg.

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  3. Thanks for the update! Looks like it's going to be a very slow haul!

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  4. I just saw them and took pictures of them at the Elkhart Indiana freight yard yesterday 9/4/15. They were sitting on sidings at the back side of the yard which runs along US33. I drove around to the access road for the yard and pulled over near them to get some pictures with my cell phone. I posted some of the pictures on my facebook account. they are not the best in the world but better than nothing.

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  5. Thanks, Dale! Keep us posed on their progress!

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  7. They left Portage, WI this morning headed to St. Paul, MN with my husband at the throttle!! I took pictures, very cool!!

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  8. If you send us some of the pictures, Stephanie, we'll post them right away!

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