Hiy, Steam is where you find it.............................

Trust me, you're probably not the Superheater (D. L.) I was referring to, since you can communicate in more than two syllable words. Older heads in the East know of whom I speak.

Well in that case, I'll get an ice tea and see if I can't get something for this rectal-cranial inversion. In the words of the famous Emily Latella: "Well, that's very different, never mind.."

I was wondering when that quote would show up. Al Phillips has many great Superheater stories.

Best,
Mike

I too have many Superheater stories.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled 734/CSX Bashing session............

I became aware of the situation on Saturday, as many of us in my organization are friends with the Potomac Eagle folks. Based on my limited knowledge, here are my observations on the situation
1. The management involved with the West Virginia Rails Festival never would have publicized 734 visiting unless they sincerly believed that the movement was a "done deal". They are very good businessmen, and several are active or retired CSX employees.
2. One of the persons involved at CSX is a former NS official who in the Goode era had a reputation of being hard to deal with. A wrench being thrown into the works at the last minute is not surprising.
3. Parties in the West Virginia state goverment are not happy about the situation. CSX's actions may have political ramifications that us mortals aren't aware of. For that reason I agree with Howard, we may not have yet heard the fat lady sing.
4. While I agree in principal with Zugmann that CSX bashing is counterproductive and "could burn bridges", based on our experiences with CSX I don't think those bridges ever existed in the first place.

Wow-three pages without details of cross threads from other sites, let me see if I can shed some light at this late hour:

As I (posted and) understand the situation, the decision by CSX to elect not to carry through last minute on an previous agreement to move WM #734 was due to a recently enacted ban on "special moves" due to an incident involving a "recent" derailment of TRRA SW1500 switchers being moved by CSX. Apparently those older units, like WM #734, do not have alignment control drawbars and I assume that is the issue at hand.

However - I believe those switchers have since been moved. And, WM #734 is one piece, not several connected together. Even more frustrating is the fact that the move is less then 10 miles, of which a good percent is not mainline trackage. Now add that CSX is in fact still running a train with WMSR equipment (a diesel and some coaches, I believe) from Cumberland to the Potomac and you can see where the logic defies understanding. It sounds like a case of "we can but elect not to". It's a shame that in the country, seemingly often, it's not what's good for everyone but rather what's best for me, in this case CSX seemingly avoiding any chance of a derailment or the extra assumed small hassle involved in moving an older well maintained steam engine roughly 10 miles on a train already scheduled to run.

I expect CSX does not have much to gain in publicity in satisfying the desires of railfans yet the negative publicity of cancelling this move can not be something
the railroad seeks.

Hopefully, the event (and charter) will be a success and patrons and fans alike will help support the folks who worked their butts off, as well as the railroads involved who have a stake invested in the success, along with the communities that lent their support for such and event. Only successful events have a good chance of repetition!

/Mitch

I have never dealt with anyone from CSX, but I can say that at this late date,I'm quite sure that the political pressure is mounting. CSX has stubbed it's toes on this move,and I would not be surprised if 734 still makes her date. If you see smoke in their roundhouse Friday night, then you know all will be well...

How many steamers did not make it to Expo '86 in Vancouver, BC because of BN?

Hey guys ( and gals) it's time to grow up! CSX owns the railroad and thus they have the EXCLUSIVE right to say who comes on the property and under what rules/conditions. They don't owe any of us anything other than the obligation to run a safe, successful railroad. In this culture where PC victimhood has become a calling, that's enough of a chore.

If you're dont like it, start a new mutual fund called " Foamers Fund,LLC" raise $200 million or thereabouts, use it to buy enough CSX common stock so your candidates control the CSX Board of Directors, have them elect a capable foamer CEO and then when you call to set-up your next mainline steam extravaganza they'll say, " YES SIR, well have everything lined up for you EXACTLY as requested, and EVERYONE at CSX looks foward to helping you make it a RESOUNDING success. Please let us know if there's anything else we can do!!".

Short of that, stop whining and say a hearty thank you to Jason and his team for all the hard work they do to give us a good excuse each year to get together!

CSX's best steam days may well lie in the future. Just remember...you always get more bees with sugar vs, vinegar!!

Ross Rowland

Nothing is static or set in stone. Managers change, policies change, local opinions change, etc. I know the CSX has a bunch of former NS guys running the show right now, but in a few years, who knows?

With the TRRA switcher incident, I know most other roads have rules against multiple engines with the non-self aligning drawbars to be moved together - didn't CSX have that rule? Even the last time I had to move a pup switcher in my train, they still had the drawbar "blocked", even though it was the only one.

Could it even be a manpower issue? Many of the railroads are running critically short on people in some areas, and when you don't have enough people to run a UPS train, or deliver hot shut-down cars to an industry, does it look good to shareholders to be playing Sir Topham Hat? As far as bad publicity, every time a CSX train crashes, smacks into something or runs over someone they will get 10,000x the bad press (from the public) then this 734 affair will ever generate among a few railfans (most of which already "hate" their local class-1).

<That's great that CSX is still "sponsoring" the event (whatever that means now...>

I am co-sponsoring an event in Maryland next month in which CSX is a participating sponsor. The sponsorships are donations of funds used to underwrite the cost of advertising, such as posters and other printed matter, and other expenses incurred to plan the event.

Who is disputing this? This is not the issue. The issue is that CSX agreed to the move before it was announced and publicized.

Any perceived "whining" is due to the lack of logic in the decision. A diesel can be moved 10 miles but a steam engine cannot.

I hate to say this (and I don't want to sound like I only care about steam, this is not true), but now that 734 will not be there, I won't be going to WVRails 2010. Granted, I didn't buy tickets, I was only going to chase, but with 425 running on Saturday up in PA, I was going to make the long drive to WV for all of Sunday. Not like the tank engines running aren't cool, no, if the event was closer home for me, then I certainly would go. 734 would have made it worth while for me to travel from the Philly area to WV for that day. Since she won't be there, I can't justify the long drive to myself much anymore. I'll spend that day at home instead. :)

I'm going to play just a little bit of "devil's advocate" here...........



No! No, no, no, it's NOT.

734, unless someone is pulling the kind of hijunks we saw illustrated in a recent issue of Trains, consists of a locomotive AND a tender, and they are semi-permanently coupled with a drawbar that may or may not have the required "alignment control."

Imagine how this is going to look to a railroader without any railfan or history in him: "Hey, they told us it was ONE locomotive; they just sent me an articulated double unit! Let me see, where are those drawbars and how do I quantify that for inspection?" [flips to the pages on articulated spine container flats, which resemble this set-up as much as this gasoline blowtorch I have on the shelf resembles the butane soldering iron on the other shelf.....] "Damn so-and-so's tricked me.... I'm gonna get royal hell for this if the bosses find out, after that TRRA switcher sh*#.... see if I ever work with these bastards again......"

I'm going to point out something:

CSX, at the same time it was doing the stuff above, is STILL planning to work with a group in the Patapsco Valley State Park in Baltimore County for a celebration of the 175th anniversary of Thomas Viaduct. July 5, 11 AM-2 PM. All off-track, no appearance by the B&O Museum's "Tom Thumb" or "William Mason," not even a train display as I understand it--but possible considerable expenditure by CSX to clean and touch up the viaduct itself.

If I hear that event got canceled because of this "blowback" regarding 734................

Knowing what the fallout of announcing the cancellation of 734 would cause, I'm sure Jason waited as long as he possibly could and exhausted every possible channel before he made the public announcement. I don't foresee any last minute "commutation" of this sentence. I do want to thank him for not hiding the news until the last minute, in the hope of getting people to the festival under false pretenses. I think that was the stand-up thing to do.

Once again, this is really unfortunate for him and his organization. Having been to both the '04 Dennison and '09 Owosso Trainfests, I know that he runs a tight ship and would not have made the original announcement of 734's attendance on a wing and a prayer. No, something or someone threw a monkey wrench into what were thought to be firm commitments.