If you check TVRM's Facebook page you will see that 4501 once again has a cab and a tender! Looking more and more like a locomotive!

Take a look at steam central.com on the schedules page and you will see that the May 14 - June 7 trips are supposed to be hauled by 4501!

Nothing yet on the TVRM website's schedule page (trip details only go as far as April 19th).

Here's a photo of the 4501 in the shop, posted today, note new smokebox door:

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/4/2/9/8429.1393093486.jpg (Bill Fold photo)

Okay, who's drivers are sitting in front of the E unit? I count four driving wheelsets there.

Alaskan RR 557?

On a side note, does anyone know when the May 31st trip tickets will go on sale? I really want to take that trip and I should imagine that it will be soon!

Does it look like her feedwater heater is off set to the right? It looks like the sand dome is on too. I can't wait to see her run for the first time!

The feedwater heater is centered. You're looking at a piece of ladder about five feet behind the smokebox that seems to blend in with the fwh.

Do we draw any conclusion from the fact that the sand dome and tender are painted and numbered in freight black?

Wesley

I seem to think that has been settled for some time.

By the way, kind of lost in the static, I like seeing the slow but steady progress on the E unit in the background. With each 4501 update shows good progress on the E unit. It'll look great when finished.

According to the most recent 4501 update on here, nothing has been painted yet on 4501. Any colors you see are from past paintjobs.

NS Whistle Post announced 4501 will power employee special The New Royal Palm May 17 and 18 between Cincinnatti and Danville KY. Other employee specials this spring will be powered by 630 and 765.

This information was most likely from an early schedule which speculated the locomotive to be used on certain trips. In the mean time, work continues on #4501 to complete its return to active service. This takes time, and will be done right. With that having been said, TVRM is planning to have steam power on the head of all advertised 21st Century Steam excursions. Locomotive 630 is the expected power for all trips until that time when #4501 is ready to go into service. Whatever date that might be is not yet determined.

In honor of 4501's proximate return to the Rat Hole Division, here is a ticket from my childhood trip to Harrodsburg in 1974. I was seven years old.

It was a fun trip. A big family reunion (my family namesake, Harrodsburg, get it?). I loved the open windows. My grandparents decided one-way was enough, and drove home direct to Frankfort from Harrodsburg.

Just so everyone keeps things in perspective, here is a flyer that was distributed on that 1974 Harrodsburg trip. KRM said 152 would be out on the road in 1975, and we all know how that turned out!

Here is the passenger program for that trip.