I've seen photos of several display sites where they did this, but this one was pretty substantial compared to some.
Funny how few photos of the display sites are out there to be found. Most movements even in daytime are hard to find photos of today. For example, I've looked for several years and I've never found any photos of the movement of the train from Jacksonville, FL to Tallahassee (a move that apparently was never in the original schedule) and return. The move to Tallahassee was made in broad daylight (I know because I was standing at the SCL station at the end of it, at the age of 6) and I think the return was as well. But in over 20 years, I've never found any photos anywhere of the move or the display setup. A yahoo group dedicated to AFT history has also turned up that a lot of display sites are also poorly documented or not at all.
You'd think you would see shots from almost every miles of the train's route, but I guess most photos got chunked somewhere...

If I remember correctly, this display site caused a lot of anxiety for the crew because of security concerns. The AFT was filled with artifacts that could not be replaced if they were lost.
The train was backed onto temporary track built in the parking lot. The move went off the mainline and the track crossing the road was removed, cutting off the train from the railroad for a few days.

Check out http://www.freedomtrain.org/american-fr ... n-home.htm

Todd Schannuth is always looking for more pics and info to add to the site. I'll be sending mine as soon as I get off my lazy butt.

Brian

I believe my parents have multiple photographs from the Memphis, TN visit. My memory is pretty vague about the display as a whole...at the time I really wasn't that excited by having to spend a day with the parents...and anything they were interested in. I do remember trying to figure out how the train was sitting in the middle of Tom Lee Park...and there were no track connections to the rail network.

If I can find those pictures I will certainly post.

We had substantial challenges at a good number of the 138 towns&cities we displayed at and this was not one of the most difficult.

IIRC the hardest of them all was a site in New England ( New Hampshire or Rhode Island??) where we ended up dividing the display into 3 segments and each segment was on an ever higher elevation, one on top of the other!! It worked but what a logistics and security nightmare.

As to the artifacts, thanks to 285 museums and private collectors we carried 512 ORIGINAL artifacts in the 10 display cars of which 23 were declared as " priceless" on the insurance manifest due to their high historic and non-replaceable nature. These included such things as George Washington's personal copy of the Constitution with his hand written notes on the margins, Delawares's copy of the Bill of Rights, the Louisianna Purchase ( had not been on display for 88 years), Martin Luther King's favorite bible, Abraham Lincoln's bible, top hat and cane, etc.

We had what was then state of the art security including 24/7 guards but it was surely a God given miracle that we were able to return every one of the 512 originals to the 285 lenders with zero damage, despite 7.6 million people having gone through the display cars and a good number of threats from different disenchanted outfits back then.

From a foamers perspective it certainly gave birth to a good number of new steam lovers even though almost all our moves were in the middle of the night.

Great memories!!

Ross Rowland

I've always been curious how and why the AFT paint scheme on the T-1 changed between April and June of '75...at the very least the tender was repainted. Do you recall where this was done Ross?

Stephen

When the AFT was notified in late 1974 that the Daylight engine would not be allowed in the Northeast on account of clearance issues we scrambled to get the 2101 ready in time for the April 1, 1975 grand opening in Wilmington Delaware to which we were firmly committed.

The hurry up original paint job done in the B&O's Riverside roundhouse in Baltimore,Md. was literally still tacky when we coupled onto the AFT outside Wash. DC to power it up the NEC to Wilmington. Somewhere along the line we had enough time to marginally improve the paint job during the spring/summer of 1975 before we handed the train over to the Daylight in Chicago in July.

We then took the 2101 ( AFT 1) to the Birmingham Alabama steam shop of the Southern Rwy. over the winter of 1975-76 and had Bob Lorenz do a comletely new and vastly improved total cosmetic do over of the engine and both tenders. The kind of first class job we wanted to do in Baltimore but didn't have time to do.

Fond memories.

Ross Rowland

I may have asked this elsewhere but do not recall the answer. Why did 4449 get to keep its number while 2101 did not?

Steve

Ross, if you're still reading this, do you have any idea why a couple of towns in Florida were added to the trip after it started? I have the maps and city listings for when the train left VA when it started, and for example, the Tallahassee stop wasn't on there (it was a heck of a hop West from Jacksonville on the SCL). I remember at the time that the newspapers said it wasn't going there, but sometime around August or September of 76, we got the world that it was coming after all.
The Preamble express never came into the area as well. It certainly wasn't on the way to anywhere on the original route. Nobody has ever been able ot answer this (I've asked Ed Immel and Doyle in Portland, neither recalled).

Lee, Basically what happened is the original route of march was layed out in 1974 with some input from the journey of the Preamble Express.

Once we got on the road we got a lot better at setting up, tearing down and moving ourselves to the next town ( thanks to a great crew made up mostly of 18-25 year olds under leaders borrowed from Ringling Bros.) so we found that we could add display days down the line. therefore we sought out additional towns that wanted us and added a few.

All in all it worked out really well and we kept pretty much very close to schedule.

Wonderful adventure with some great stories I'll share in the book.

Ross Rowland

Some pics I took at Collinwood can be seen here.
This would have been the last steam engine that was serviced(and I'm pretty sure painted as well) in the Collinwood NYC backshops.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20941728@N ... 442458976/

Yes, your pics have jogged my memory bank. Our crew chief at that time was Bill Benson who previously had worked at the Collingwood shop and had friends there. Bill was able to get the folks at the shop to let him repaint the T1 and her tender there in the spring of '75 during the T1's stint on the AFT from Wilmington Del. to Chicago,Il.
After we handed the train over to the Daylight in July of '75 at Chicago we then took her to Alabama for the complete Bob Lorenze cosmetic do over.

Ross Rowland

Thank you very much, Ross! I've been wondering this for the better part of 20+ years now.
As for your book, I can't wait to read that (and I'm quite sure there are lots of others waiting as well).

Although not there at this exact moment I was told by others who were that painting the locomotive at Riverside roundhouse in Baltimore was really frantic. When the engine was taken outside for the first time there were some parts of the drivers that hadn't been painted properly due to being under the rods as she sat inside. But once outside the loco promptly found some track where the ties were either rotted or a short piece of lighter rail had been installed at some point when repairs were made. The #2101 promptly rolled one of these over and derailed. While the railroad was getting her back up on the rails and checking the route ahead for similar problems the volunteers were able to paint the parts of the drivers that had been out of reach earlier. No time was wasted.

Jeff,

Pretty sure the answer was that the powers that be in Memphis did not want to block a busy street for the duration of the AFT's stay and demanded that once the AFT was in place, the snap/panel track be removed so that traffic flow could be restored. I remember talking to one of the AFT vets at a crew reunion (can't remember if it was Des Moines or Sonoma) that this was one of the times that they were really nervous about the train's security. Fortunately, nothing came of it!

Regards,
John Lewis

I am still waiting for somebody to publish the pictures of AFT 4449 with the Santa Claus face. ;-)

-Hudson