(erielack) DL&W 565

["MDelvec952_@_aol.com"]

In a message dated 1/10/00 12:49:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
"paultup_@_lucent.com" writes:

> The 565 was originally stuffed and mounted on display at Citro's Restaurant
>  in Wayne, NJ  ... It was then sold to a group of individuals interested in 
starting a tourist line in Morris County (no relation to the Morris County 
Central, though).
>  The group was planning on purchasing some track around the Lake Jct. area 
in
>  New Jersey (not sure if it was DL&W or CNJ track).


The DM&M purchased it from the DL&W directly in 1936, after the 2-6-0s were 
bumped by the huge 2-8-2s and three-cylinder 4-8-2s. 

Anyway, at the end of the D&MM steam era, in 1960, Bill Whitehead bought the 
565 for a tourist road he was starting in Chester, N.J., called the Black 
River Railroad, on the CNJ's Chester Branch.  The locomotive and a few 
passenger cars actually steamed and operated in Chester when neighbors of the 
railroad fought the frivolous enterprise and won.  Lackawanna's Chester 
Branch follows the course of the Black River, which is where the name came 
from.  Route 206 still crosses the Black River north of Chester.  The legal 
details of why the BR&W left Chester is described in Lowenthal's Iron Mine 
Railroads...

After leaving Chester, Whitehead brought the 565 to Ringoes with the 
reorganized Black River & Western, around 1965.  Tony Citro bought it in 1968 
and moved it to Wayne, N.J., without ever running it. Citro died, and the 
engine passed through a few owners, one of which tried moving it to the 
Adirondak for service (parts of the 565 are believed to be on the Adirondak 
still).  In 1983 Don Ball took partial ownership of it to move to Scranton, 
but upon arrival it became a political football and part of the campaign to 
bring Steamtown USA to Scranton. 

There were several owners during and after the Don Ball / Steamtown 
Foundation period, but the locomotive was donated to Steamtown NHS as part of 
the deal to establish the national park.  There it rusts/rests today, in the 
roundhouse.  The details of its conservation, cosmetic restoration and 
interpretation since the NPS involvement would fit on a postage stamp, but at 
least it's indoors.

                             ....Mike

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