Most steam locomotive exhausts will cause clipping on regular consumer video cameras and even pro cameras if you don't prepare for it.
This little 1522 video was shot with a Canon Hi-8 (in one of the rare times it wasn't in the shop) and you could adjust the input volume on each channel.
This was returning from a shakedown run and 1522 was stopped on Valley Park Hill killing time before a scheduled appearance at Webster Grove. She has the whistle from IC 2807 on her for this trip.
You can crank up the volume on this one and it's pretty darned clean.
The down in the corner engineer is putting on a little show with the short train for the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450xGgT8q7s

After visiting China and watching, running, and riding working steam in places where there were dozens of them running, the feeling of the scale of the steam era really hit me. Now I have enjoyed many trips in the cab and behind steam here in the US but being in the steam age has changed my perspective.

Firing for my Son in Poland and watching him run steam for the first time.

When this thread started I thought it was only going to be about steam locomotives we had seen, not necessarily ridden on or behind, which is why I chose a 614 coal train from '85. Most impressive on-board experience for me still remains, after over 20 years, my 2 1/2 hours in the cab of 765 from Montgomery to Meadow Creek, WV with Rich Melvin on a New River train excursion. Lima shotgun exhaust indeed!

On September 30, 1997, the last day of the season for GCRy steam, I rode 4960 to the Canyon with Robert Franzen and Robby Peartree. We had a full water car @ 97 tons, the power car, 4 Harriman coaches and two upgraded cars, a dome and obsy. No diesel.
It was the perfect trip, speedo right on 40 where allowed, boiler right around 198 for the entire trip, no slips and no mechanical writeups. I witnessed the Superheat temp nose just over 700 degrees F in a couple of places, that's doing pretty well.

These machines have my utmost respect, I'm happy for you with all your experiences on her. I'd have traded my plate off of 1500 for 10 minutes in the seat!

One trip that is imprinted in my mind is a trip in England in 1962 (I think) when I was a freshman in High School. We had arrived by ship in Liverpool, and were to take the "boat train" to London. There, we were to make connections, like hundreds of other passengers on the 10-12 coach train. For some reason, the train was delayed. It was night by the time we boarded, and I did not have a chance to see what was at the front of the train. We soon figured it was one of the last steam locomotives still in mainline operation, and we must have been given a clear path to London.

As soon as the engine driver could open her up, he did. My Dad stood in the passageway opposite our compartment and began timing the mileposts. I figured we were in for a good run as we passed 60, then 70, then 80 mph. As house windows flashed by and the whistle occasionally screamed (as only those little "peanut" whistles can do!), we kept picking up speed, settling into a steady 90--95 mph for most of the trip. While the trip was pretty smooth for that speed, we were amazed that the train kept up the speed for mile after mile after mile, the whistle screaming through station after station. While the darkness probably added to the sensations, it was the trip of a lifetime!

Next best was sitting on the tank of the little 2-4-4 Forney, Rachel, after a day of pulling trains in the Doe River Gorge. The engineer (borrowed from Tweetsie) was concerned that the slow trips all day with the oil-fired locomotive might be plugging up the flues, so he felt we should sand the flues! After uncoupling the cars, we pulled though the tunnel (old ET&WNC tunnel #2) & stopped on the 2+% grade at the beginning of the only straight stretch in the gorge. After getting the sand ready, & telling everyone to hang on, he opened the throttle, and we accelerated up the gorge faster than any train there before or since! Needless to say, the flues were nice & clean, & I got a great video of the trip, and the black smoke as it poured out of Rachel's stack!

It's VERY early Christmas Day morning 2012, and while I'm waiting to get a chance to fill a "certain someones" stocking, I thought of a couple of other fantastic performances:

1. Years ago, the Laona & Northern still had a connection with the Soo Line at Laona Junction, 8 miles from Laona. On the last run of the day, they went all the way to the Soo if they had any freight cars to move. That day they did. Their line was laid up and down the modest hills, no cuts or fills. Little 2-6-2 number 4 did a "I think-i-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can" up to the top of a hill, and then a "I-thought-I-could, I-thought-I-could, I-thought-I-could" down into the valley with a repeat for each hill. Quite a performance for the passengers back in the cabooses and coaches. I came away very impressed with the Vulcan's guts!

2. More recently, when the Grand Canyon Railway was still running steam regularly, Consolidation #29 had a train that was at its limit (one more car would have meant an FPA helper). The 2-8-0 got down on her knees on the big grade. The stack talk was terrific! She could run on my railroad any day!

Les

July 1959 on a misty summer day as I watched PRR B-6sb 5244 come down a yard lead, make a reverse move and proudly hold her head high as she steamed off to the 46th Street enginehouse in Philadelphia to drop her fire, making her the regular active last PRR steam locomotive. Not a thundering 4-8-4 attacking a grade with a string of hoppers or Pacific making 80 per trailing a rake of coaches, but it left an impression that has stuck with me and I can see it in my mind's eye as if it were yesterday.

I had a great ride behind one of the German 4-6-2s from Bremerhaven to Stuttgart back in '63. We got off the troop ship and loaded on the train (which ran right on schedule the whole trip) and really booked it through the night. I kept getting yelled at for the open window but I hadn't heard a show like that for a long time. Had a whistle almost like an N&W hooter.

While reading Phil Raynes' recollection of a fast ride behind steam in 1962, I couldn't help but think that there were a total of three performances he was watching--the locomotive, the engineer, and perhaps greatest of all, the fireman. That engine, likely a Pacific of some sort, probably with a grate area of about 50 or so square feet, would have been hand fired. Imagine doing that for the hours that trip required. . .makes our guys with the big stoker-fired engines or the oil-burners look wimpy by comparison, even if they are not in reality.

Frisco 1522 mentions a fast German ride; wonder if the Germans used stokers, or if like the British, relied on a man and a shovel to make all that steam?

The YouTube file below was recorded during a ride on a Uitenhage commuter train in 1981. The locomotive was a 15AR class 4-8-2 hauling an eleven car set of side door commuter stock. I was in the first coach and the sound was what was heard from the open window. In those days a performance like this was repeated hundreds of times, every day. It got more interesting later on, as it started to rain as we got closer to Port Elizabeth.

The clip is a departure from Perseverence station headed for Port Elizabeth. The recording is among my earliest, so please forgive the sound quality.
The photos are all of Uitenhage commuter trains by close friend Bob Koch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtuUyzlKmo

I submit for your enjoyment this clip from last Saturday. A cold day in the Maine woods, 3 coaches and a caboose full of kids of all ages, and a 1904 Vulcan Forney:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uydAuCikLf4

Check out the action around the 3:30 mark as we hurry up north to see Santa at Alna Center.

The pure chuff...One day I was given the task to sand the rails. We were just starting up Hermosa grade on the Eureka and our sanders had a mechanical issue. Wet rails and we needed sand I grabbed one of our crew (Chris Brophy), got 2 buckets of sand, and we both hopped up on the front of the 4. Appling sand on the rail all the way up the hill.
Those sounds you hear in the cab, the noise from the fire, the train cars behind you, the rail joints etc. you just don't hear up front. All you hear is the clear crisp sound of the steam exhausting throught the smokebox and stack. Some may call it stack talk but when your next to the smoke box working up the hill....well its the pure chuff.

As always a privlidge and honor to participate on the Eureka, Merry Christmas everyone.

C W

1) The absolute best time machine had to be the NRHS 1991 Huntington New River trip with 765 and 1225. We didn't get back into Huntington until 1:00 AM, and we were knocking off mile posts in less than 50 seconds. Hearing the 765 pulling the 31 car passenger train and riding alone in the open vestibule while the rest of the train slept and hearing the whistle and the warm August air filled with coal smoke was something that had to be experienced to believe!
2) The 1218 doing a runby on the way to Fort Wayne in 92? Was the first time I had the chance to experience this magnicificant engine up close and personal.
3) The first real runby for me was back in 75 for the AFT when the 4449 came through Kenosha Wisconsin. I was pestering my dad for hours to not miss it when she came through Kenosha. I then heard the whistle, (the tracks were only 6 blocks from my house), and I knew we had missed it. To my dad's credit, we hopped into the station wagon and raced north to Racine. We passed it half way between Racine and Kenosha, and saw it run past there, and then went on ahead of it to se it pass at the then abandoned Racine depot. The tracks were rather less than perfect and when she ran through the depot area, she was rocking and rolling. My first real experience with mainline steam.
4) The Illinois Railway Mueum with the Nebraska Zephyr on the 1993 ARM trip to Nenaha Wisconsin doing a runby near Lomira Wisconsin!
5) The 1522 on the 1990 Newburg Excursion....What a loud climb as we headed back up the grade. Down to almost a crawl and the loud square exhaust!