SRM Features: An Old Friend Returns

All Fired Up: An Old Friend Returns

by Malcolm Campbell

Steam locomotives disappeared from most U. S. general system railroads and industrial applications by 1960. Years later, they still have the power to inspire us and transport us back in time, for this was technology with a soul. Here is a combination of steam and steel that carries passengers and mail at high speeds and hauls heavy loads up steep grades while variously hissing like a dragon, screaming like a banshee and purring like a cat.

The dragon, the banshee and the cat are returning to the Southeastern Railway Museum September 20th and 21st in the form of steam locomotive #97. The 50-ton switch engine last ran at the museum in 1991.

The locomotive, which was donated to the museum by Georgia Power Company in 1965, has just undergone its first major overhaul in 36 years.

An eight-man crew of museum volunteers has spent over 2,000 hours since last fall replacing the boiler flues, redesigning the firebox and the oil burner system, refurbishing the air compressors and dynamo, plumbing, plus grinding, sandblasting, patching, priming, and painting exterior surfaces.

The locomotive has been repainted in the black, silver and red color scheme she had on the day she was donated.

The flues, or tubes, are at the heart of the locomotive. Georgia Power #97's 150 tubes carry hot gasses the ten feet from fire box in the rear to the smoke box in the front, heating the water in the barrel of the boiler en route.

Like the famous "Thomas" on PBS' Shining Time Station, #97 is a tank engine. She carries water in two side tanks and oil or other fuel in a rear tank, making a tender unnecessary.

The locomotive was built by the H. K. Porter Company of Pittsburgh, PA in 1943 for the United States Army as #5050--"old half and half," they used to call her. Georgia Power Company purchased the locomotive and used it to ferry materials around the construction site during the building of Plant McDonough.