Old Reliable. It's only 3PM, but the shadows are rapidly taking over the Sheepscot Yard as WW&F #10 makes her way from the water tank to the station area, to pick up her 6th and final train of the day at the museum's annual Victorian Christmas event.
Built in 1904 by the Vulcan Iron Works as a 30" gauge plantation engine, Number 10 has been around a little bit. Over a 50+ year career, she ran at 3 different sugar plantations before finally being retired in 1958. She was then sold to the Edaville Railroad attraction in South Carver, Massachusetts. There, she was re-boilered, re-gauged to 24" and put to work at an associated amusement park called Pleasure Island. When that park closed, she was simply stored at Edaville. At only 12 tons, she was just too small to haul Edaville's busy tourist trains. When Edaville Closed in the 1990s she was put up for sale and was purchased by the newly established WW&F Museum. First operated on the WW&F in 1999, she underwent a major refurbishment over the course of several years. She has now served the WW&F Museum reliably and economically for 16 years. With WW&F #9 now operational, little #10 is scheduled to take some time off and undergo a boiler inspection during the Winter of 2015-2016. When that inspection and any necessary repairs are completed, she will rejoin the museum's fleet, which now boasts 2 steam locomotives for the first time in its 30 year history.
