The event is free and is open to the public. It will feature a birthday cake for the engine and prizes. The group will also be doing a live stream going over the progress made in 2018 and looking forward to 2019, according to Chris Campbell, the heritage group’s president.
ALCO built No. 2716 in 1943 and delivered it to the C&O in December. The Kanawha worked in dual service until it and its classmates were retired in 1956 as dieselization took hold. It was donated to the Kentucky Railway Museum in 1959, and was famously leased and restored as “Southern 2716” for excursion service on the Southern in the early 1980s.
The engine was removed from service due to firebox issues in 1982, and was moved to the Fort Wayne Railway Historical Society facilities in Fort Wayne, Ind., after the end of the Norfolk Southern steam program in 1995. The Fort Wayne society restored the engine to its C&O appearance, and it ran excursions in Indiana in 1996 until it needed major repairs. The engine was returned to Kentucky in 2001, and was placed under a shelter. In the spring 2016, The Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp. leased the engine long term from Kentucky museum for restoration and eventual operation.
The Kentucky steam group recently received their steam support cars, acquired from the Indiana Transportation Museum, at their former CSX Transportation car repair facility in Ravenna, Ky. No. 2716 will eventually be moved to Ravenna as the restoration process continues. The Indiana Transportation Museum’s former Nickel Plate Road Mikado 2-8-2 No. 587 is already on the property at Ravenna, and will eventually be restored by the Kentucky steam group in partnership with the Indiana museum.
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