The Tweetsie guys are fortunate that alot of the information on our little railroad has survived the times. Alot of the old men lived up into the 1980's and was able to share this stuff with the railfans and historians of the time. Now not one person is alive that ran the ET&WNC narrow gauge. As a matter of fact there are only 6 guys currently living that have ever run #12 at Tweetsie, 4 of which work there and two have retired. As for information on Tweetsie's engines i recommend Johnny Graybeals book series "Along The ET&WNC", which currently has 4 volumes out. The first two are on the engines only, they have loads of information on all 16 narrow gauge engines. They are available through
www.tarheelpress.com . As far as #10's lead and lap modification this was done at the factory. Also it was the only one done this way. #11, #12 and #14 were built to the specs called for by ET&WNC originally. As for the condition after the fire I would have imagined the boilers them selves were probably still in fair condition but as far as the mechanical workings of the engines imagine that many of the rods, brake bars, crossheads and other hardware were damaged well beyond restoration. The most ironic thing about the fire is that according to the paper work that I have USA #190 was sent to Whitehorse to take over there duties, now #190 runs with there sister #12 at Tweetsie.