ET&WNC No.12

The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina No. 12 is a 4-6-0 steam locomotive built by the Baldwin locomotive works in 1917 for the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railway. The engine used to haul passengers and freight trains over the ET&WNC's 66-mile line running from Johnson City over the Appalachian Mountains to Boone, North Carolina.

The engine ran train service from Johnson City, Tennessee to Boone, North Carolina from 1917 to October 16th, 1949, after 32 years of service. The line would continue to operate until October 16th, 1950, when the ET&WNC ceased operations of the 3 foot narrow gauge trackage from Elizabethton, TN to Cranberry, NC. The following year, scrapping of the line began and by 1952, the "narr'" gauge portion of the ET&WNC was nothing more than a memory.

In that year, the line began to place the last of the narrow gauge locomotives up for sale and No12 was purchased by a group of railroad enthusiasts and was taken to Rockingham County, Virginia to operate as the small "Shenandoah Central" tourist line in 1952. That line was washed out by the torrential rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Hazel in 1954. It was then purchased by a developer and moved to Hickory, North Carolina for restoration. Today it operates in a western style theme park just outside of Blowing Rock, North Carolina.

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From Rail Tales