The farmer and his sons

There is an old story about a farmer and his sons. On his death bed, he called his sons to him and told them that there was a great fortune buried beneath his fields. After his death, the sons took up their shovels and spades and dug over the farmer's fields looking for the buried fortune. They found nothing. They did not understand what their father had told them until the fields rewarded the sons' labor with an abundant crop later that year.

This week, the prizes of our collection -- N&W's #611 and #1218 -- are down at Norfolk Southern's East End Shops for the 125th anniversary celebration of Norfolk Southern/Norfolk & Western. Further, your Virginia Museum of Transportation is co-sponsoring and hosting a lecture and book signing by Rush Loving, Jr., author of The Men Who Loved Trains in November. Our co-sponsors include the O. Winston Link Museum, the C&O Historical Society, the N&W Historical Society, and the Roanoke and Blue Ridge Chapters of the National Railroad Historical Society. These two things couldn't be less related, save for one important element. -- collaboration.

Will we see any money or additional foot traffic from having our two most famous locomotives off-site? No, quite the contrary, really. Will the book signing be a profitable experience for us or any of our co-sponsors? At least not monetarily, no.

Wick Moorman, Chairman of Norfolk Southern said not once, not twice, but thrice in a speech that the N&W Class Y6 #2156 which currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri should be brought home to Roanoke to stand next to its cousins, #611 and #1218. Think a bit of the sight that yet may be, those three steam engines -- A, and J, and Y -- all in one place again.

What greater fortune could there be beneath this field? And who better to work the field than we, the sons of the railroad?