Norfolk and Western Class J Steam Locomotive #611

History of No. 611

The Norfolk & Western No. 611 Class J steam engine is a 4-8-4 streamlined steam engine now owned and operated by the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA as a traveling exhibit. This steam engine, also known as the “Spirit of Roanoke” and the “Queen of Steam,” was built in the Norfolk and Western shops in Roanoke, VA in 1950 and hauled passenger trains for only nine years before being retired from commercial service in 1959. While the other Class J’s were scrapped, 611 was donated to the city of Roanoke and later to the Transportation Museum.

In 1982, No. 611 was restored to operation by Norfolk Southern Railway, N&Ws successor, and was used for excursion service, traveling as far as New York, Florida, and Illinois, until 1994.

611 was returned to the Transportation Museum in 1995 and remained there for 19 years until it was moved to the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina, where it was restored and brought back to steam operation under the Virginia Museum of Transportation’s Fire Up 611! fundraising campaign. 

In 2015, after an extensive rebuild and refit, 611 returned to the Norfolk Southern for mainline excursion service. In 2019, the locomotive traveled to the Strasburg Railroad in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, to run short line excursions there. 

After completing Federal Railroad Administration-mandated boiler inspection and maintenance in 2022, the locomotive returned to Virginia to prepare for local excursions. 

Shenandoah Valley Limited Excursions

The Buckingham Branch Railroad is a short line railroad that provides freight services along a number of track segments in Virginia that connect to several Class 1 railroads. It also runs regularly scheduled passenger excursions from Staunton, VA, operating as the Virginia Scenic Railway.

In the fall of 2023 No. 611 was used for a number of round trip passenger excursions operated by the Virginia Scenic Railway as the Shenandoah Valley Limited between Goshen, VA and Staunton, VA. These excursions operated twice a day on weekends in October and the first weekend in November. The excursion sold out so rapidly that an additional car was added to each scheduled train.

I have been a long-time steam engine rail fan (see our post Reading Railroad T-1 Class Steam Engine #2100) and I was aware of these steam engine excursions from articles in the local newspaper but I was unfamiliar with the railroad between Goshen and Staunton and did not know where there would be a good place to take photographs of this engine. That changed with an article in the Daily News-Record, our local newspaper, on October 24, 2023 which included a great photograph of the engine climbing a grade near Craigsville, VA, which was taken by Brady Shifflett. A quick search identified him as the lead Photographer for Harrisonburg High School Media. I asked a friend who is the school division photographer at Harrisonburg City Public Schools to introduce us and Brady quickly identified the location of his photograph as the Jackson Trail crossing in Ferrol, VA.

No. 611 Photographs and Video

Because of other commitments, I was unable to visit the location Brady identified until the afternoon of Saturday November 4 when I was able to take some photographs as the engine passed. Beverly and I returned the next afternoon, Sunday November 5 to photograph the last excursion. Unfortunately I had not considered the time change to standard time so I was facing directly into the sun. While I was taking photographs of the engine, Beverly took an iPhone video of it’s passing, which is below the photo gallery.

The first six images in the gallery are my HDR images, each of which is a combination of two or three separate images taken at different exposures. (For an explanation of this technique, please see the Definitions page.) The seventh image, 611 near Craigsville, VA is from Wikimedia Commons, attributed to Fan Railer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

This video Beverly took has been posted on YouTube – that is me in the foreground taking photos of No. 611 approaching our position.

Additional Information

Virginia Museum of Transportation

Virginia Museum of Transportation – Norfolk & Western J Class #611

https://www.virginiascenicrailway.com/

https://www.virginiascenicrailway.com/rides/shenandoah-valley-limited/

Wikipedia – Norfolk and Western 611

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139108419 by Fan Railer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Technical Data

Norfolk & Western Class J No. 611 climbs the eastbound 1% grade approaching Craigsville, VA on the morning of October 13, 2023, 09:48:40. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license by Fan Railer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.