I was at a train show in Virginia Beach two weeks ago and a vendor there asked if I knew how the 611 had been spared the scrapper's torch. He said that years ago, when the Norfolk & Western railroad had a change in administration, the incoming president decided to do away with the steam engines. That didn't set well with some of the crew there.
Fortunately and oddly enough, the 611 was the last of the J-class engines to be in an accident and she was in a siding out back. Some of guys there piled up tons of scrap all around her so that it looked like just a pile of scrap. She went unnoticed for quite a time and when another change in N&W presidents took place and he inquired if all the steam engines were gone and they said well, not ALL of them. Thus the 611 was saved!
Quite a lesson for those of us who get disappointed that the steam program is no more and that the 611 and 1218 sit beautiful, but quiet at the Roanoke Museum of Transportation. Perhaps one day, someone who still loves steam will be back "in power" and let them run the rails again as these iron horses were meant to do. (btw, I was told, too, that "iron horse" was a term coined by the Native Americans upon seeing the metal monsters charging across the plains).
