HNWR030

HNWR030

Locomotive No. 1212 pulls a load in a scene of the past: a steam engine at work. The N&W was the last major American railroad to abandon the steam engine in favor of the diesel engine. The designers and engineers of the N&W developed the steam locomotive to its highest potential. As one observer noted about the N&W and steam, "No one taught them anything. They were the ones that wrote the book". The last steam engine produced by N&W was a switcher engine that rolled out of the Roanoke Shops in December 1953. After 70 years of steam engines, N&W began buying diesel engines in 1955.

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Nelson Harris; Virginia Museum of Transportation

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HNWR030