Just saw on the "Fire Up 611" Facebook page that the last boiler tube went in to 611 today! Great milestone reached by the 611 Team, congratulations and here's to the 2015 return to steam!

I hope they do some trips in northern Virginia or even out of Hagerstown, MD. That would be closer for me. Not sure if they would take the 611 to Harrisburg, PA like the 765. NS has a direct route to Harrisburg from Roanoke roughly following I-81. But it's a few hundred miles. No steam can go beyond Alexandria, VA to the north because only Amtrak and CSX own track toward Baltimore, Philly on the DC and MD side. And we all know how CSX feels about steam :( Only way for steam from the south to hit MD, PA, etc. is go via Hagerstown, MD. If 611 can't go that way due to weight or other restrictions then it is stuck in the south. Unless it can get over to Ohio some other way.

I would image at least at first trips are going to be out of Roanoke and not consist of "a few hundred miles" one way.

Robert, you'd probably see more steam if you're able to drive. Most of the steamers aren't going to make it to your backyard unfortunately.

611 and 1218, and NKP 765 did numerous runs over the former NKP between Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Bellevue, and points west in their 1980s-1990s careers. There were and are other ways for these locos to get to Pennsylvania and Ohio over NS even without the addition of ex-PRR routes to the system. You just have to think beyond a blinkered focus on your backyard.

You could also take Amtrak and/or buses to NS excursion departure points. Amtrak now serves Norfolk directly, has long served Richmond and other cities directly, and Roanoke via connecting bus, should those once-common departure points return to the fold.

Well, in the 1980's 2102 and 765 both did mainline trips in eastern PA (and NJ as well for 765) but Conrail sort of put an end to those trips and the 765 trips were part of that horrible 1988 Tri-State convention. Now it's like pulling teeth to have a steam trip anywhere outside the Reading and Northern and Steamtown which isn't running steam right now. We were lucky that 765 ran public trips in PA last year. I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up for something that might not even happen. Well, last year we did have the Lehigh Limited diesel trip from Hoboken, NJ to Bethlehem, PA but you couldn't board at Bethlehem. And the Amtrak trips from Philly to Harrisburg via Reading on old Reading lines this past Nov. I didn't ride either of those. The NS lines east of Harrisburg are very busy with freight traffic so hard to have an excursion on those lines. I'll just wait until the New Year for news on 2015 NS excursions from TVRM, FWRHS, and VMT and see if I can make one of them. It's just that traveling long distances is a hardship for us right now. My mom is on oxygen and we were lucky to make the 765 trip last year because she had a rented battery powered oxygen machine on rollers like a traveling suitcase. All those 425 trips this month and last I didn't make any of them, last year we rode 425 from Tamaqua.

All anyone can say right now is that until Norfolk Southern officially announces their excursion specials for 2015, everything is speculation regarding the destinations and even motive power for said trips.

In the end, no matter where the trips go, there will be those who will complain that NS didn't visit THEIR town. But I guess this is life. You can't make everyone happy, but as long as the majority of the people like what you are doing, everything will be good to go.

Regardless, 2015 will be a good year for steam on the high iron.

Such a shame as it'd be amazing to have 611 finally meet 4449 under steam, as each should be under their own power at about the same time after their respective rebuilds.

In the old program 611 went everywhere. They must have operated like 20+ trips a year. Now the new program isn't as big as the old one so my guess is that there will be about 4-6 public excursions with 611 next year between spring and fall. They will probably run a few trips out of Roanoke since it's home base for 611 and they have a boarding site at the old N&W station. As to anywhere else, that is still unknown. But Manassas to Front Royal would be one possibility. Both locations have wyes. And Manassas is accessible via Amtrak or VRE from Wash DC. About 70 some miles each way from Manassas to Front Royal. Hey for that we could take Amtrak from Philly to DC, stay overnight, and take another train to Manassas the day of the trip if they have a trip from Manassas.

Your just a little bit light in your estimate of annual trips run. The 1994 season, the last year that the NS original program was full-time, saw 55 mainline trips.

The old schedule may be viewed by way of the following two page images. The actual trips run varied slightly from what was published in this schedule, but for the most part, it was accurate.





I was fortunate to have caught much of the NS action that season including one of 611's last climbs of on October 2, 1994 as depicted in the following thumbnail image.



The full-sized view may be seen by clicking the link below:

N&W 611 Climbing Christiansburg Mountain Grade

The above emphasis on 55 is mine. While we may wish for the old program trying to run something of that magnitude, especially when NS has been having trouble moving freight, would certainly kill off the program yet again. This is something that we need to remember - while the new program has been excellent if we get greedy it can go away in an instant. I'm not saying we should never ask for anything, but we do need to keep things in perspective.

Why was the old program killed off anyway? Did David Goode CEO at the time have a hatred for steam much like CSX and Hunter Harrison at CP? Thanks for the brochure. If you go to Steam Central and go to the archives or just type Steam Central 1982 or 1994 in Google for example, you will see ALL mainline steam movements by NS and other railroads! The 1980's saw a lot of mainline steam excursions by NS and other operators such as Blue Mountain & Reading and Strasburg both in eastern PA. After 1988 BM&R stopped running trips on Conrail, and Strasburg only ran off line trips in 1985-1986 such as to Harrisburg and Philly with PRR #7002 and #1223. They had a fleet of steel open window coaches then. The excursions were probably too much headache for Conrail so they eventually said no and the only reason steam was on NS was because of Bob (and W. Graham) Claytor. Graham was president of Amtrak at the time. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube showing some of these mainline trips such as with ex-Reading 2102, NKP 765, 7002 and 1223, etc. It's a shame they all came to an end. Andy Muller at BM&R must have had a great working relationship with Conrail for those trips to happen but I think the breakdown of #1361 on the way home to Altoona in late Aug or Sept. 1988 caused Conrail to rethink their excursion policy with vintage equipment. Between 1983-1988 there was steam through my area every one of those years except maybe 1984. From Rail Tours 972 to BM&R 2102 to BM&R 425 to NKP 765 they all came through my area on special runs. In 1986 BM&R operated no off line trips except the Hoboken-Port Jervis runs with #425 due to an insurance crisis. In the early 90's BM&R operated trips from Emmaus to Pennsburg, PA with #2102 and #425. I rode one of them behind #2102. I also rode behind #1361 at York, PA in August, 1988. The 1980's were much more lax in regard to steam excursions on mainlines. And open windows were permitted then, too and older heavyweight coaches with friction bearings and open windows.

Next year though we will see both #4501 and #611 in action on NS pulling public trips (as well as 765) even if there aren't as many runs. Some of those routes could happen next year. I think I read somewhere that there will be new routes for 2015 that haven't been done yet with the new program. Some of those routes have already been done with #630 and #765 in the new program such as Knoxville-Asheville and Detroit- Ft. Wayne. Note how NS never handled ticket sales directly. I think they were prohibited from doing so. The sponsors or NRHS groups handled ticket sales, and now TVRM, FWRHS and soon to be VMT handle ticket sales for the new program. 611 actually went to the city where Cedar Point amusement park is in Sept. 1994? Sandusky, OH? Wow, 611 got around back then. I hope 611 can travel somewhat like it did before even if there are fewer trips. I suppose the routes to or from Fort Wayne, IN will be handled by the #765 though.

I wonder how NS will fit three different operators into their schedule next year, though. Will they be able to have two excursions in different areas at the same time? Like if 765 and 611 operate on the same weekend, or 4501 and 765.

Yes, there were variations from that printed schedule as well. For one thing, there were a final run on Dec. 3 made after the cancellation of the program was announced; also, a set of trips Nov. 5-6 out of Atlanta with 611 was cancelled, as was a Saturday AM run with 611 Greenville-Spartanburg, SC on Nov. 12 (the afternoon run to Toccoa, Ga. ran, as did that last climb of Saluda the next day). Also cancelled: Trips from Bellevue, Ohio to Fort Wayne Sept. 17-18, and the post-crash trips out of Richmond Oct. 1-2 (the Roanoke trips ran instead Oct. 8-9 to Walton and Bluefield).

Jim Wrinn's book Steam's Camelot includes a list of all SR/NS steam/excursion trips 1964-1994, compiled by Wrinn and John A. Craft.

Personal animosity almost never really enters the mix. The Claytors were a major factor in keeping steam alive until 1994, but there's no mustachio-twirling, cloaked "villain" to blame for its demise.

The cessation of the NS steam program and other such excursion programs had largely to do with the changing environment in the eastern U.S., from both a business and a legal standpoint:

• Insurance demands went up. Compelled by increasing jury awards, litigation replacing baseball as a national pastime, and inflation, railroads started putting higher liability insurance demands on operators. CSX started demanding liability insurance of $250 million on operators, which had a de facto result of "banning" excursions--because such insurance was unavailable anywhere at any price, even from Lloyd's of London.
• Rail traffic increased, while capacity decreased. In the wake of the Staggers Rail Act and deregulation in late 1980, the railroad industry started seeing traffic increases, not long after many of them had begun reducing capacity to curb capital/maintenance costs and taxation. The former three-to-four-track PRR "Broad Way" was reduced in many locations to three and even two tracks; SR and N&W mains were reduced from two tracks to single-track with many passing sidings. And now traffic was on the increase--and continues to increase to this day.
• Rail employment is down sharply. The railroads of 1994 and today were/are being run by "skeleton crews" compared to days of old when there were yardmasters, trainmasters, engineers, hostlers, brakemen, maintenance-of-way guys, and road foremen aplenty. Today, I wonder how far a railroad would have to go to find a guy who could, for example, competently load coal with a Burro crane and clamshell bucket. Heck, could I even FIND a Burro crane anywhere in this state, aside from the burned-out one by a CSX junction near DC? There are "million-dollar trains" that aren't running, or being delayed, because the railroads can't find crews. And you want to steal a crew that doesn't exist to let someone else run a steam train through your traffic jam??? You're going to be greeted with very acidic, colorful language when you make that request.....
• Equipment up to the job was getting harder to find. New FRA, AAR, and Amtrak standards--or, indeed, the disappearance of passenger car AAR standards, making Amtrak standards a fall-back "default" for lines like CSX, including 480V HEP pass-through and heating, made maintaining a passenger car, the weekend activity of so many NRHS chapters, a badly-losing proposition. Refitting cars to these standards, starting just with roller bearings and rebuilt trucks, could run six figures in a heartbeat, and trusty warhorses of old, such as B&O heavyweights and PRR P70s were being put to pasture for more modern cars.
• Poor PR value. Wrinn cites "others" as saying that NS "had failed in recent years to capitalize on the trains' public relations values."
• And, last but not least, the scare not only from the Great Dismal Swamp derailment at speed in 1986, but from a midnight switching crash with empty rolling stock in Kinney Yard on Sept. 28, 1994, destroying two cars and badly damaging five others. I have been told, off the record from someone who was present at a post-accident upper-level NS meeting, that as they were reciting the casualty list of rolling stock, one officer said "what if there had been people on those cars?" My associate said, "And in the silence that followed that question, you could hear the coffin lid slamming shut on NS steam."

Yep, I've heard exactly the same thing as well. People keep pointing to the swamp derailment, but it was that incident in the yard that somehow really scared NS.

My understanding of what did it for CSX was the Bayou Canot wreck of the Sunset Ltd. in Sept. of '93, that killed 47 and injured 103. That put a huge scare into the entire industry, and the yard wreck on NS in '94 was their last straw. Now we have the same thing happening with the Wheeling and the Orrville, Oh group over a derailment of five of their excursion cars in Bellevue, Oh that were returning from the Owosso Trainfest (almost half of their fleet, and most of their best coaches - including the ones used in the movie Unstoppable). It's really touchy, and the Wheeling hasn't permanently pulled the plug on future excursions, but they cancelled everything on their main lines (including Op Lifesaver trips) for the rest of the year. Orrville doesn't have enough reserve cars to field much of a train right now anyway, and it is the Wheeling's railroad. Guess we should be glad for over 30 years of local excursion operations.