Into the unknown

Who: MVRHA
What: Whistle Toot
Where: B&O Station Catering
530 Mahoning Ave.
Youngstown OH 44502
When: Saturday, November 28  - Thanksgiving weekend
10AM til 3PM
Why: This will be a fund-raiser for the club to help make the railroad museum a reality. If you have a whistle it will be a $20 donation to get hooked up. If you want to pull a whistle cord & give a toot we are asking a $1 donation. If you want to come & watch (& listen), it’s free.
For more info send an e-mail to us via our website - www.mvrha.org or call Hank Marsilio at 330-550-8165.

Because there hasn’t bee too much going on, I haven’t updated this in a while. But now there is some news - our whistle toot. On November 28 we will be at the B&O Banquet Hall (530 Mahoning Ave in Youngstown) making some noise with steam whistles. Once I get a flier I’ll post it on Webshots so everybody can read the details.

On Saturday, July 18, we unloaded the newest addition to our collection.  It is a G.E. 60 ton locomotive coming from Alliance.  I will give full acknowledgement to the donors when I get the proper name of the company but for now I would like to say thank you for your consideration to our efforts.  The picture is when it was rolling off the trailer after more than a fews hours of hard work.  It took several hours to build the temporary track but much more time to prep the engine.  But  that’s a whole different story for another time.

The new kid

There haven’t been any postings since there hasn’t been much going on. We’ve been working to get the donated rail ready to move & trying to keep up with the weeds at the museum site but that’s about it. If things go good this weekend, there should be something to post next week. And I haven’t forgotten about the 301 pix - one of these days some will show up here.

Here are the specs for the Youngstown Sheet & Tube #301,  which is on display at the Canfield Fairgrounds just south of the city.  These were copied from the spec sheet several years ago but all the information is correct as far as I know.  Because the tender was modified to carry more fuel & water, certain specs are no longer correct because they are for the locomotive as it was built,  not as it is now. 

Since today is Flag Day I hope there are lots of places to see Old Glory flapping in the breeze.  And speaking of the flag, are you aware that flying a tattered & torn flag is a sign of disrespect?  So if your flag has seen better days - buy a new one (made in USA).

Back to business - sometime this week more pictures of the 301 will be posted along with a spec sheet when it was built.  The tender was later modified to hold more coal & water.

Last Saturday might have been the first time the MVRHA had two work parties at the same time.  Somebody was nice enough to donate some rail to us so while several people were working on the rail there was another group at our museum site doing some good old-fashioned yard work.  Many times we have trouble getting more than 2 or 3 guys for one work session but to have enough for two - at the same time - WOW!  Many thanks to all the volunteers!!!  On a related note, there have been at least several people working off-site to get the rail ready so we are making progress to establishing  our railroad museum.

Now if somebody could tell me how to delete all those bs “comments” I’d be very grateful.

The MVRHA will be meeting this Thursday, May 7 at 7:30PM.  The meeting place will be the Saxon Club located at 710 S. Meridian Rd.  I mistakenly said the meeting was last week but I goofed - oops!  It is definately this Thursday.  All are welcome.

Yesterday - 4/25 - we had a busload of visitors from the N.M.R.A. come to have a look at our collection.  This group is part of a SIG that is interested in the industrial aspect of railroading so the MVRHA is right up their alley.  First up was a stop at our museum site in Youngstown to have a look at our cars there.  After a half-hour or so visit they then went to the remainder of our collection in Struthers.  They seemed to enjoy their visit and took more than a few pictures.  Partial thanks goes out to Mother Nature for cooperating so well.   Scott & Rick also helped so a pull on the whistle cord for each of them.  A special thank you goes out to the N.M.R.A. for visiting us - thanks for making our efforts worthwhile!  Although we are not open to the public (yet)  we will try to accomodate anybody who wants to visit.   There will probaly be another update late this week after the general meeting on Thursday.

I said there would be some new pix & here they are.  There were several members clearing some brush from our museum site yesterday so we can have more room to lay tracks down. 

Hot Metal Car 1

This is one of the hot metal cars that the MVRHA owns.

Hot Metal Car 2

This is the other hot metal car that we own.  When in use, these cars carried molten metal from one part of the mill to another as part of the steelmaking process.

Slag Car #23

This slag was used at the blast furnaces.  I’ll explain it’s exact purpose later.

23117

 This caboose was originally from the Pennsylvania Railroad & then became part of Conrail’s fleet.  It is now part of our collection.  Note the round windows - a rare feature on crew cars.