I found this video on youtube.
You have the triple header , then the quad ,
what would you call this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBk83R9Gig

A "Thundering Herd".

Jeff

With credit to C. W. McCall: "Mercy sakes alive, Good Buddies, we got us a CONVOY here!" For a more urban slant, "It's Showtime!" The words, mindboggling, amazing, unbelievable and railfan's wildest dreams come to mind. The one event in my experience that comes even close to this "Steamorama" was the 1985 ARM convention at IRM. Chartered transit buses picked us up at the hotel and took us not to the Museum, but to a grade crossing out on the main line. Trains of Chicago-area electric railway cars stretched as far as the eye could see--the hard part was deciding which one to ride first. In both cases, one has to consider the hours and days of hard, dirty labor it takes to arrive at spectactular shows like this.

"If it's worth doing, it's worth OVERdoing!"

To quote the glamorous star of stage and screen, Miss Mae West: Too much of a good thing is wonderful!

Anyone notice that buried in the middle of that cavalcade of mostly Polish locomotives was a Great Western tank engine (hard to tell, but I think it was a 2-6-2 rather than a 2-8-0)!?

Personally, this just strikes me as plain silly. Other than occasionally deadheading a bunch of engines to a shop or (horrors) to the scrapper, this kind of thing just wasn't done.

Yeah - silly, absurd even, and VERY COOL!!! :)

Hi,
The closes thing to it on video I saw was in about 1995 at the C&TS when all five 2-8-2's were coupled together and each whistled in turn for the grade crossing at the Wye on the west end of the year.
As Tim the Tool Man says "MORE POWER!!!"
DvV

And if this was done here in the States, you would not be track side with camera in hand, drooling at the sight of that many MAIN LINE steam loco's running together?

Look at the amount of people standing trackside....

Fact is, it can't be done in this country. Too much policical BS amongst Class 1 RR's to get enough engines together to do the same. Sad.

And yes, that was a GW 2-6-2 Tank engine mixed in there.

We can hope that each locomotive will be headed towards responsible preservation. How wonderful! I enjoyed watching the drivers, comparing the high-stepping Pacifics to the smaller drivered freight types.

Yeah, Wayne, well, let me tell you what else is downright silly: Driving cars around and around and around for hours on a track or down a straight strip, just so one can "win" by a few seconds or tenths of a second ahead of another. Silly waste of fuel, isn't it? Or driving around big contraptions with grotesquely oversized wheels in a dirt-filled arena, driving them up ramps and flying through the air, and churning up acres of dirt or mud.

Or how about arenas filled with people watching a bunch of men (usually) in funny looking outfits throwing, hitting, or bouncing a ball or puck around? Paying obscene fees just for the RIGHT to buy season tickets in particular seats? I mean, they go back and watch again and again, the fools...................

Just imagine what we could do if we had even one per cent of the money spent--voluntarily, mind you--on those "silly" spectacles. Imagine if a national rail festival or convention brought anywhere near the numbers that ONE college football game or NASCAR race does, and cities were doing their best to get us to hold it in their city.........

If "silly" spectacle is what we need to bring interest, young people, and serious dollars to our avocation, then I'd happily build a giant Mickey Mouse handcar and a giant Lionel "cops & robbers" boxcar to add to that 18-loco lash-up.............

Well I know that was not all of the Wolsztyn stable. Sixteen engines and the one I ran, OL49-59 was not one of them. Pretty remarkable being able to field 16 operable, mostly mainline steam locos in one place.

Regarding "silly" things in RR preservation (and I'm not sure whether the person who used the term was being serious or ironic): How many railway-preservation groups have found that visits from a TV-character locomotive, of British ancestry, totally unlike anything that ever ran in the USA, brings thousands of non-railfans to our museums and heritage railways, gets young people interested in trains and adds welcome $$$$ to project funds? Some of the more hard-nosed folks in our world may scoff at Thomas the Tank Engine, and even come up with nicknames that (we hope) aren't heard by outsiders, but we still invite our "really useful" visitor every year.

"And if this was done here in the States, you would not be track side with camera in hand, drooling at the sight of that many MAIN LINE steam loco's running together?

Look at the amount of people standing trackside....

Fact is, it can't be done in this country. Too much policical BS amongst Class 1 RR's to get enough engines together to do the same. Sad."

Sorry -- I ain't buying. I'm not a camera carrier, and a spectacle like this doesn't interest me any more than a NASCAR race or a professional football game would. I'll take my steam engines one or two at a time, where I can walk up to them and admire them. My one trip to a large steam gathering left me with a bad taste in my mouth after being nearly run off the road by the crazed editor of a popular Eastern rail magazine and shouted at and cursed at by a well-known rail photographer. I'm happy to help build track, scrape paint and occasionally ride on an engine, and if invited, to take my turn in the right-hand seat (where I am qualified, by the way). Otherwise, I'm happy to find a nice spot away from the crowd to watch the steam engine pass, making my mental videos for later review.