No, I did not get a picture — which is why I am relying on the below photo from Wikimedia Commons. Roaring through town yesterday morning was the vintage Norfolk & Western Class J #611, “The Spirit of Roanoke.” You can read about it here at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Steam trains are pretty damn loud, as it turns out. And those columns of steam are tremendous.
It’s really cool looking too — it has a black-and-red, 50’s-era design. (It was built in 1950.)
In the late 1950’s the like-new J Class 4-8-4’s, owned by the Norfolk & Western, found themselves on their last duties hauling short passengers and local freights before finally being retired and eventually scrapped due to the advent and arrival of first generation diesels. Only one member of the iconic J Class avoided that fate, which is preserved and operated by the Virginia Museum of Transportation, and that’s #611. Joined by her smaller and much older counterpart at the Strasburg Railroad, M Class 4-8-0 #475 is dressed up as sister engine #382, famous in O. Winston Link’s photographs of the Abingdon Branch of the Norfolk & Western, as a part of Lerro Photography’s Photo Extravaganza weekend. Both engines are hauling consists similar to the ones the Mighty J Class and the Venerable M Class might have pulled, such as the Virginia Creeper for the 382, or perhaps a short freight out of Crewe, VA for the 611
5th Street Overpass near the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Mill Mountain is in the background. If you look closely at the sixth photo, you can see what looks like a gutted fighter jet to the right of the two antiquated trains. I can only assume those are connected with the museum. (So, too, is the rusting hulk in the seventh.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 