A Day at the Transportation Museum and the J-611
Trains, Planes, Automobiles you name it in the world of transportation past or current you will find it at the Virginia Transportation Museum downtown Roanoke Virginia. Home to the sole remaining of 14 built Class J model steam locomotives by the Norfolk & Western Railway here in Roanoke, Virginia. The J-611 is the crown jewel of the museum, this locomotive rolled out of Roanoke’s East End Shop in 1950. Its mission was to pull a 15 passenger train from Norfolk, Virginia to Cincinnati, Ohio. The locomotive recently underwent extensive repairs and upgrades at the North Carolina Museum of Transportation for the past two years.
When I arrived in early June excitement was all in the air as repairs to the J-611 neared completion. Adding to this excitement was the locomotive was going to steam under its own power from North Carolina to Pennsylvania to be located for the summer at the Strasburg Rail company. On May 22, 2021 with our museum director Christine Williams aboard one of the passenger cars the J-611 arrived safely in Strasburg under its own power where the locomotive for this summer will provide daily passenger excursions for the Pennsylvania Transportation Museum. I arrived just a few days shy to be included in what I call a lifetime experience, hopefully when the J-611 returns to Roanoke later this year it will run excursions from Roanoke to Lynchburg as it has done in the recent years.