Forgive me if this topic has been discussed elsewhere on the board, but I'm curious about what became of the boiler of W&Q No. 1, ex Sandy River No. 3, "Butterfly".
Numerous authors, including Linwood Moody and Dick Andrews among others, have made the claim that after the engine was retired from service, its boiler was recycled as a culvert, and was still (as of the second half of the 20th century) in place as such somewhere along the right of way.
Has any attempt been made to locate and/or recover this artifact? If it still exists (and that's a *big* if, even considering the greater corrosion resistance of old wrought iron as compared to more modern steels), it might make an interesting display for the museum alongside the original boiler of No. 9.
(And it also might not be the only one out there, as Jones mentions in Two Feet to Tidewater that the WW&F was in the habit of buying old standard gauge boilers from the MeC to use as culverts. Could there be a whole roundhouse full of lost engines buried along the WW&F?)
Yours in late-winter daydreaming,
Philip Marshall