http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 8802050329

Historic locomotive finds safe haven

BY VIDYA PADMANABHAN
DAILY RECORD
HANOVER -- A 100-year-old steam-powered locomotive, No. 385, ended 50 years of hard work and 50 years of dodging the salvager's torch Monday by arriving at a safe haven in the township.

Today, it will make its way to its final destination, the Whippany Railway Museum.

Several diehard railroad buffs, seemingly impervious to the cold, gathered in an industrial section of Cedar Knolls to await the engine's arrival on Monday.

Eventually, police escort and oversize warning vehicles, lights blinking, turned the corner onto East Frederick Place. Behind them, the engine made its stately progress, seated on a flatbed truck. On another truck, came the "tender," the companion rail car that holds the water and coal.

The arrival animated the waiting fans. Paul Tupaczewski, the trustee and secretary of the Whippany Railway Museum, clambered onto a pile of snow-covered rocks and, swaying on his precarious perch, trained his camera on the locomotive.

"Elevation is everything," he said.

History on the move

For about 50 years, the locomotive was in service on the Southern Railway, pulling freight trains through North Carolina and Virginia. By the end of its career, it was pulling smaller, local trains, as the larger, long-distance ones were being led by new, powerful diesel locomotives.

In 1952, the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway of Piney River, Va., purchased No. 385, and renumbered it their No. 6, but, finding spare parts scarce, soon designated it for the scrap heap. In 1963, the first of its knights came to its rescue.

Earle H. Gil Sr., then of Parsippany, transported the No. 385 to Morristown, and restored it for deployment in an excursion railroad, the Morris County Central Railroad, which began operations in 1965. The railroad moved to Newfoundland in 1974, and the line went out of business in 1980.

The No. 385, needing major repairs, had been taken out of service in 1978, and has not been under steam since.

In 1990, the Bergen County Vocational and Technical High School acquired it, to teach a "stationary steam" course. In 1999, the course was scrapped, and, once again No. 385 seemed destined for the scrap heap.

Another rescue

And once more, a railroad buff stepped in. Joseph Supor, Jr., the founder of J. Supor and Son Trucking and Rigging Company of Harrison, had the locomotive trucked to his facility, where it sat while Supor debated possibilities.

In 2005, Earle Gil and Joe Supor met, and came up with the seed of the plan that made Monday's journey possible.

Gil and Supor both died in 2007, but it was obvious on Monday that No. 385 was safe among friends.

Joan and John Terry, who ran a gift shop at the Morris County Central Railroad station while the railroad was in operation, were standing by watching the old locomotive come back home.

"I think it's actually a miracle," Joan Terry said.

"It brings tears to my eyes," her husband said.

Supor Jr.'s grandson, Joe Supor IV had made the journey from Harrison along with the locomotive. The Supor Trucking Company had donated time, equipment and expertise to transport the locomotive saved by his grandfather.

"It's a great piece of American history," he said. "It would be a shame to get rid of it."

A museum piece

The engine would be cosmetically restored upon joining its counterpart, steam locomotive No. 4039, at the museum, Steve Hepler, president of the Whippany Railway Museum, said. However, the cost involved in restoring it to a running condition made that a remote possibility, he said.

The locomotive spent Monday night on the grounds of the Cargille Tab-Pro Corp., whose owner had allowed the use of his property, Hepler said.

This morning, cranes are to pick up the locomotive and place it on the tracks running through the property, and it is to be towed by a Morristown and Erie Railway freight train to the museum, he said.

Another article I found...

http://www.recordernewspapers.com/artic ... 360559.txt

Old No. 385 Gets A Lift; locomotive to go on display at museum


Tuesday, February 5, 2008 8:55 PM EST



HANOVER TWP. – Old No. 385, a 100-year-old steam-powered locomotive, made its way to Cedar Knolls Monday, next stop, the Whippany Rail Museum on Route 10 where it will remain as a museum exhibit, having been spared the salvager’s torch.

The engine had been loaded on onto a flatbed truck in Newfoundland in northern New Jersey, where it had sat for years unused.

Joseph Supor Jr, owner of J. Super & Son Trucking and Rigging in Harrison and also an old locomotive buff, knew about the engine, and working with the museum, had the engine trucked to his facility.

On Monday it made its way to Cargille Tab-Pro Corp. on East Frederick Place in Cedar Knolls where it rested for the night. On Tuesday, with Joe Supor IV behind the wheel the engine was driven to the museum.

According to a release from the museum, for about 50 years, Old No. 385 pulled freight trains through the rural landscape of North Carolina and Virginia.

It had worked faithfully for two separate railroads and the time had come in the mid-1950s when it was set aside to be scrapped on a small railroad in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

The engine was built 1907 at the Baldwin Locomotive Works, just outside of Philadelphia. It was one of 25 “Consolidationâ€

Whippany railway museum is right by my work, I can go sometime and get a snapshot of it.

_________________
www.abandonedmines.net

Yeah, I was meaning to stop by there Sunday to snap a few shots of it myself. However, it was pretty cold and windy outside and then we got hit with a white out of snow by me.

Miner Greg