Someone pointed me to the Golden Pacific website. It says that 2100 is awaiting recertification and excursions will start May 1, 2008 at a new location. The rest of the website is not working but the main pages does indeed claim she will run in 2008.

http://www.goldenpacificrr.com/

What, no mention of the clean two owner F40PH that never pushed a steam locomotive up a hill, no not even once!

MX

First it would be a very wise thing to take that website with a VERY healthy dose of salt as it was continuing to advertise the Tacoma operation for the better part of a year after it shut down.
For everyones sake (particularly the 2100's) let's hope they've worked things out so that they can resume some kind of operation and further let's hope it is set-up so that it stands a decent chance of commercial success??
Best of good luck to them!!
Ross Rowland

I particularly enjoyed the part where it said "scheduled runs are now over for the 2007 season". It would be interesting to know why they "ran" to where they "ran" in 2007?

MX

Mr. mxdata posted "What, no mention of the clean two owner F40PH"

Would you please inform myself and a few others as to who the TWO owners are. This I would like to hear.

TIA
Mike

You mean the FLNX 418? It's for sale apparently.

http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/f40-418.htm

$275k.

I don't recall FLNX being in the EMD records for F40PH original sales, so they would appear to be the second owner. Have there been more owners in between the original purchaser (Amtrak) and FLNX?

Nice looking unit, maybe a candidate for museum preservation some day?

MX

You are correct, I have 418 listed with ozark mountain

As to my last post, I mis-read what MXDATA posted. 418 has had four owners

Mike

Four owners for a locmotive that killed the ones who killed steam. WOW how time does fly.

Just out of curiosity, why is it that in nearly every shot or video of 2100 running with or w/out the diesel helpers there is a second plume of steam coming from the tender? What modifications did they do to her to make this steam and what purpose does it serve?

The dynamo is located on the tender, along with a large bank of batteries. The plume of steam was from the dynamo. We did have the capability to run the radios and headlights etc off of battery power, so the few times you didn't see the plume, that's what was happening.

The dynamo on the tender? Batteries? Why?

> The dynamo on the tender? Batteries? Why?

I'm not sure, wasn't my design. The 2100 has some fancy electronics in the cab for use in signalized areas. I think it was an alerter etc, but we didn't really use it on Tacoma Rail so I'm not positive of all the functions and details etc.

I think the bank of batteries was to provide power for that system along with the headlights and radios etc. I do know the dynamo didn't have to be on for the systems to function. It was nice to not have to listen to the dynamo whine all day long.

There's a lot in the cab to power. In addition to the usual things like lights, there is the radio, a reset control and the electronic laser speedometer. The dynamo was also converted from the usual 32 volt DC output to I believe 72 volts. Don't quote me on the specific voltage.

The only reason I could see it being relocated to the tender is to be near the batteries.

I think some of the NKP Berkshires had four generators, for headlight and cab lighting, Mars light, train control, and radio. All were mounted near the steam turret.

The setup that fascinated me, and I am too young to have seen it, was the CNJ head-end lighting generators on the tenders. I think B&M, Rock Island and C&NW may have had similar arrangements, but I don't think they were on the tender.