With the 610 going down soon after two decades of regular service, I thought some of you would like to see the engine doing what it's known for, running passenger trains for the Tennessee Valley. Below is a link showing the engine pulling the 'Autumn Leaf Special' back in 2003, before the Chattooga and Chickamauga were damaged by washouts and slow orders that has since cut back what the trips potential.

There are three sections to view, the first being the morning departure in the fog from Grand Junction and various shots on the museum trackage before some pacing shots on the belt line to the Norfolk Southern yard downtown.

Section two begins with the engine trying to start the train onto the C&C line (you can see the fireman signaling the helper engine for assistance) and then on through to the Tennessee-Georgia state line and more hard working pacing shots.

Section three is a lot of quick pacing with the engineer handling the train over some pretty good short grades and into some sags as they run south through Georgia. Towards the end of the video they walk through downtown Trion, past the textile plant and towards Summerville.

On a personal note, I felt some would enjoy this simply for the fact it's steam, other may be fans of the Tennessee Valley or the 610 itself. This was a video made on our last family vacation together (my dad and brother came up again the next weekend) which had been a mid-October tradition since I was four years old. Four months later I had saved up the money to move to Durango and start a career getting to do this myself. We only saw the engine one day a year, driving up on a Friday from Florida, chasing the train Saturday, and then driving back to Florida on Sunday. Aside from really being the only vacation my family ever took, this was something I got to look forward to each year and was the only steam we saw after the NS steam program ended. My dad enjoyed watching the locomotive as much as he enjoyed editing videos in his spare time as his career is in broadcasting. The rest of my family just enjoyed not being in Florida for three days.

The point I wanted to make was, I feel fortunate to have found something to do I enjoy everyday, and the variety of skills and talent it takes to keep a steam locomotive running. Before I got into the railroad, watching the engine pull the train was just fascinating to me and the sound of it all just drew me even more.

Since we saw this trip I've gotten to meet a lot of people who were once just names on this and other boards, hear some of the stories that will never be told on here, and learn a great deal about life in general. I got the privilege to be an engineer and fireman on the narrow gauge in Colorado, work as a freight conductor, learn from wonderfully talented fellow crew and employees, re-rail engines, spike track, step over hypodermic needles, work every hour of the day, plow snow on Christmas day, see engines from the 19th century be rebuilt and run, get a tetanus shot and cinders scraped from my eye, saw how well a distributing valve works at 14 below, been called at 2AM to check an engine, been called at 3AM with a complaint about smoke, ruined my washing machine, and just all around enjoyed it so much to want to do more.

So much of that has been due to the interest kept alive by one steam engine.

First Section
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW4MfjMNj0c&feature=related

Second Section
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSdnkxAEetY&feature=related

Third Section
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmHrWofkl6I

Thanks for sharing, I really miss tvrm and working with 610