"I heard about some steam excursion back East 30 years or more which was ruined by railfans or pranksters greasing the rails. Anyone know more details than that vague description?"

There may have been others, but there was an incident, in Laurel Run, PA. I was something like four or five at the time (1967-1968ish) and I still remember my eyeballs dilating to the size of dinner plates when those wheel began spinning.

Preston Claytor was on the 765 trip from Lewistown to Altoona, Sunday May 26th, pitching the idea to restore the N&W 611 to operation.

Riding the Guayaquil & Quito 3 trips in the 1990s. Derailment of coach on middle leg of the Devil's Nose. Uncoupling of last coach on middle leg of Devil's Nose & being ready to bail as we started rolling down the 5% grade. Derailment of old #53 (all wheels on the ground) near Riobomba.

Then one time on the Esquel line the loco simply ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately the bar car was still full. After a few hours we hiked about a mile to a dirt road where they'd managed to bring in a couple old busses.

US excursions have been pretty tame.

On the southbound "Peach Blossom Special" to Atlanta for the '94 NRHS Convention we overnighted in Memphis. I was called to run from Memphis to Amory, MS when the scheduled engineer's wife took ill and went to the ER.
The fireman and I did our usual "preflight" and were up on the engine, which had it's usual cab full of people (small cab). The Division Supe was up there and departure time had passed by a few minutes. He was on his cell phone and hung up and told me "Whistle off and let's go". Fortunately for me it was in front of witnesses. So off we went and upon arrival at Amory, our train director came up and asked me "Who told you to leave Memphis"? I told him and he said that people were still loading when I whistled off. I guess they should have pulled the air back there but didn't. The guy in the cab was an enormous pain in the butt the whole trip to Amory and Birmingham. It turned out his Dad was Supe at Newburg, MO when my Dad was still alive and working in and out of Newburg and I can remember Dad saying he was a pain in the butt also. Must have been a family tradition.
I made the mistake of letting him sit down for a "few miles" and almost had to bodily remove him from the seatbox. He was an excellent BS artist and I hope he got his butt chewed for turning us loose when he did.
That's when we instituted the rule of directly contacting both the crew and the train director before moving. Probably should have done this before, but until then everything always ran smoothly.

I don't want readers getting a bad concept about excursions here, they happen, even on everyday railroad experiences, but compare to the daily highway accident reports, railroads are far safer.

Just a boo-boo and no one was hurt, but this thread reminded me of a Chessie Steam Special with ex-Reading 2101. I have it recorded as July 23, 1978. A "crew" of us took CN Tempo to Windsor and got over to Detroit for the excursion to a place called Grand Ledge (just west of Lansing).
It was a fair sized train - 20 to 22 cars if memory serves and the old gal put on a pretty good show. I believe the hogger ot that train is a regular contributer to this site! Crossing a diamond around the Ann Arbor area, the train pulled apart because of the rough crossing. Simply a matter of recoupling. It pulled apart again on that run for some reason.
We met up with a few Michigan pals on that one which was nice. There was some dignitary on the train named E. M. Frimbo, an author of some sort. He was holding court in the food car! Reminds me of a CN 6218 trip from Hamilton to St. Thomas, Ontario back in '69. Got to meet Colonel Harland Sanders who often rode the trips. He had a summer place near Toronto and was quite a rail enthusiast. Very pleasant old gentleman.

GW,

E. M. Frimbo (aka "World's Greatest Rail Fan") was Rogers Whittaker. Google him-- interesting stories.

The Chessie Steam Special concession car (car 11, I recall) was named "E. M. Frimbo" and carried a facsimile of his signature on the outside of the car. Whittaker was well in on the joke and participated in a formal naming ceremony for the car.

On-topic reference: when the CSS left Camden Station headed for Martinsburg, WVa one fine Sunday morning in 1977, the 8 shopping bags full of Dunkin Donuts had not arrived. I have an indelible image in my mind (acquired while looking out an open dutch door) of an attempt to hand up the bags at a grade crossing in an industrial part of Bawl-mer, with the train moving about 5-10 mph. Most of the bags made it, but a couple did not, and it was rolling donuts all over the place. Oh, the humanity!!!! Oh, the donuts!!!

Howard P.

Probably one of the old Central of New Jersey coaches with Sharon couplers. A former Chessie officer told me these cars separated, more than once.



Col. Sanders worked briefly as a fireman for the Southern Railway. http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1972/72-1/kfc.html

Alan Maples

Hi all

As for one trip that I can remember , was Steamtown Railfan Weekend in October 1982 . The weekend started out great at the old Steamtown , in Vermont the only Steam that was running was CPR # 1246 . The Green Mountain Railroad had ex Rutland # 405 also providing it's services for Steamtown . The one visiting locomotive was Vermont Railway RS-3 # 603.
Well is usual Steamtown would have it's usual trip to Rutland , Vermont on Sunday . This trip would start out without any problems , the train consisted of 12 coaches . As for CPR # 1246 and the VT Railway diesel pulling the train to Rutland , there was not any problems .
We had our usual photo runbys on the way up to Rutland , I think that they were two ? I could be wrong on this . The trouble did not start until we left Rutland, Vt , at that time , we had CPR # 1246 handling the train with (12) coaches and trying to head South back to Riverside . Just outside of Rutland we had a photo stop and in good light . Just after the photo stop ,we proceeded to try to head southbound , but there was a sight hill and CPR # 1246 tried to make it up too . The engineer was of Andy Barbara , Andy tried three or four times to make the Hill , but the train was too heavy for the Pacific .
There was talk about going back and having the Vermont railway push the train up the Hill . The decision was made too Double The Hill , the train was cut in half , and the first (6) coaches would be brought to Summit . And then CPR # 1246 would return to Rutland , pick up the second half of the train , bring that too Summit . At Summit , the train would be put back together and make it way back to Riverside /Steamtown .
Once both sections got back together , the trip had another small problem to content with . We were almost back to Chester, Vt , and a tree fell across the track, blocking the right of way .
So we were already running late as it is , the Steamtown crew took a chance and moved the tree with the locomotive , instead of waiting for a crew from the Green Mountain Railroad cut and move the tree .
We were supposed too be back at Riverside around 5 PM, we did not get back until either 9 or 10 PM .

On the train were quite a few people , that had to catch the Vermonter, that was one connection that was not made . Steamtown Railfan Weekenf was held on October 24Th & 25Th , 1982. We got back late , but it was still a great trip . Pat

May I discretely suggest you actually meant the Montrealer?

Hi Alexander
You are right , and Thank you, Pat.

Here is video of the Blue Peter self-destructing itself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54HUQYeFNg

The 'Blue Peter' video is very disturbing. Can anyone talk about what happened there and what the hogger should have done when the slip began?
Since I am new to the site, perhaps this has been talked about before?
Thank you.

Here is a link the the discussion:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34335

My brother and I were on that Toronto-Hamilton St. Thomas 6218 trip and many others. Somewhere, I have a pic of Col. Sanders up in the cab at Hamilton. It occurs to me that he was a fireman for the Southern before becoming a fried chicken magnate. He had moved to Canada by that time and lived in Cooksville, just west of Toronto.

My brother and several other Halton County Radial Ry. active members were on the Railfan 25th Anniversary (Steamtown) trip where ex-CP 2317 running tender first rammed into their standing train. It was a very hard hit, my brother cracked 4 teeth and he was 8 cars back from the impact. The fact that there was a diesel coupled to the back of the standing train may have helped absorb some of the hit.

Gord

Forgot about that Railfan Mag Steamtown trip. I was on that too. Happened at Cresco station just after lunch break. The mag downplayed it, calling it a "hard coupling", but lots of people were being triaged outside the train. We eventually returned to Scranton in school busses.