AOS Fires Up M&NF 0-6-0 No. 12

The Age of Steam Roundhouse said this week that former Morehead & North Fork 0-6-0 No. 12 was successfully fired-up and operated around the AOS property in Sugarcreek, Ohio, on July 16 and 17.

In a news release, AOS said it was the first derelict steam locomotive to be rebuilt and brought back to life at the AOS shop.

AOS described No. 12 as a sentimental favorite because AOS founder Jerry Joe Jacobson saw this locomotive in regular operation during the early 1960s.

He purchased No. 12 in 2011, and authorized its rebuilding before he died in September 2017.

Formerly Southern Railway 0-6-0 No. 1643 built by Alco Pittsburg in 1905, No. 12 sports the Southern’s usual top-lever steam whistle.

The tender’s cistern and coal bunker are of new construction on top of the original tender frame. The rebuild was done under the direction of Tim Sposato, the AOS chief mechanical officer.

To see photos and a short video of No. 12’s first test runs, visit http://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com

What I Got on This Trip was a Treasure

The Akron Railroad Club blog entry about chasing Nickel Plate Road No. 765 all day and only getting it in three locations reminds me of a December 1974 trip that a railfan friend and I took.

We covered over a thousand miles, but I took photos of only two locomotives and no trains on that three or four day trip.

Thankfully, one of the locomotives was this Morehead & Morgan Fork Baldwin road switcher.

It was a cold, rainy late-December morning in Morehead, Kentucky, and 1202 had already done the little work it had to do when I got there.

But the crew left it out for a few minutes for me to get my slides. I only found out later how few times the M&MF had operated during its short existence.

Sadly, the Baldwins were scrapped when the railroad was scrapped.  Some treasures can’t be evaluated in miles and days.

Article and Photograph by Robert Farkas