> A favorite high speed performance:
> Chessie Safety Express, October ___ 1981,
> Baltimore "Old Main Line" to
> Martinsburg, Silver Spring Line on the
> return. A veteran B&O Road Foreman was
> at the throttle that evening. The stack talk
> from 614 was a continuous roar.

Same engine, same route, September 26, 1981 (I think Steve and I are thinking of the same trip)--hanging out the dutch door with safety goggles on as we absolutely sotrmed Parr's Spring Ridge gade on the Metrolpolitan Branch at Barnesville MD.

I got off at Riverdale MD, with the reverse racoon effect in full glory--face and head black everywhere except for a band of white around the eyes.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Riding in an open gondola behind CB&Q #5632 as it raced back to Chicago in the dark, huddling at the back of the tender right behind the loco comes to mind. . . but the standout is racing across the English countryside at 93 mph behind the three cylinder 4-6-2 "City of Wells." Unbelievable!

rdgoldfede@aol.com

Mt Rainier Scenic RR geared engine triple header. I volunteered to help Jack, Harold and the usual suspects prepare for the trip. Finished work on the Minarets with Harold as well as working on the air pump for and a loud knock in the Heislers innards.

Next day we ran the Minarets on its first trip. It pulled the passenger train to sopt for photos on the Nisqually River bridge, but a bolt unscrewed and we lost a pin in the valve gear on the way. delays while Harold and I find it and reinstall it with bailing wire instead of a nut. Embarrassed to see old friends from Spencer very amused by all this.

Finally get the train to the bridge and we wait....and wait......and wait for the geatred power to bring their photo trains out so we can take the passengers over. Meanwhile the several cups of coffee I had consumed were reaching a critical mass. Can't hang it out the window on a bridge with a couple hundred photographers waiting below. My desperation was only matched by gentleman Jack's low voiced but urgent entreaties to get the trains moving over the radio. It is the only time I have ever heard him other than laid back.

Then, there was the time we rescued the dead evil diesels with Shay # 12 at Georgetown Loop, and the end of season impromptu night trip and photo session, and the time we ran a special open car charter with two bus groups - one of British rail fans and one little old ladies quilting society, and it snowed. we anticipated problems, but the Brits shared the thermoses of tea with the quilters and a fine time was had by all.

Its a colorful and varied business and I am proud to have been a part of it.

Dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

That had to be the return trip of the June 8, 1985 mainline trip of #7002 and #1223 from Rockville back to Strasburg over the Amtrak ex-PRR main. Linn and Jim respectively put in a fast dash that seemed 70 or 80 per. Wow, at age 12, I was absolutely speechless. After the passage of some eight or so years those old PRR locomotives were still doing what they were built to do--run FAST! George Hart, himself a veteran steam operator and rider onboard that trip told me he was only ever scared twice in his life and that was one of the times; he looked out his coach window at 1223's drivers and they were a blur. We were racing past the cars on nearby Route 283, which was really something to behold.

It will never happen again.

Everyday I walk past #1223 in Rolling Stock Hall I always think back to that splendid afternoon in 1985.

K.R. Bell
RR Museum of PA

> Riding in an open gondola behind CB&Q
> #5632 as it raced back to Chicago in the
> dark, huddling at the back of the tender
> right behind the loco comes to mind. . . but
> the standout is racing across the English
> countryside at 93 mph behind the three
> cylinder 4-6-2 "City of Wells."
> Unbelievable!


c-kbell@state.pa.us

> Jim, thanks for the good laugh! That's
> hilarious! Did the engine crew know that
> there were a bunch of guys hanging on the
> back of the tender?

> Steve

Not until we were back in the baggage car. Another guy who did this regularly went so far as to stand on the tender deck behind the coal slope sheet and record the sound. We used it in our IC video along with some of his footage.


http://www.herronrail.com
hrvideo@mindspring.com

No Message

walking down to Wayne Junction listening to 2124's turbogenerator - no hiss of leaking steam, just the turbo whine.

2124 and 2100 saluting CF&I 4 at Birdsboro. All three engines are still around.

clocking 75 between Woodbourne and Neshaminy Falls, well aware the engine's speed limit was supposed to be 65.

riding through Modena (Luria Brothers scrapyard) as a local guy on board said "I thought I'd never be riding thru here behind steam." The scrapyard is closed but the Ramble engines are all still around.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

The 1971 Labor Day operations of the revitalized "Sugar Pine Railway" over Pickering Lumber Corp. trackage in the mountains above Sonora, CA. I was seven years old and spent many, many hours perched on the oil tank of three-truck Shay #7 as she wound her way along the Stanislaus River gorge. The echo of the chime whistle sent chills down my spine! Switching out the rolling stock at Long Siding and Tramway in the dead of night before heading back to Lyons Lake to put the #7 away for good was eerie and exhilirating at the same time. My dad recorded many, many hours of the operation on tape in stereo sound, which still provides quite a thrill to this day. Oh to have had a camcorder back then!!

Brian T. Wise
Benton, KY

sugarpine71@yahoo.com

> Same engine, same route, September 26, 1981
> (I think Steve and I are thinking of the
> same trip)--- with the reverse
> racoon effect in full glory--face and head
> black everywhere except for a band of white
> around the eyes.

I think you have the right date. I was remembering it as "fall-something".

And I remember quite a few of those "reverse racoons" standing silently in the recording car. The other white was coming from all the grins, listening to the "music" coming from the head-end.

A couple more.

Age 5 (1976)

Being wisked into my parent's 65 Buick Riviera as my Dad fractured every motor vehicle law to get to the Chesnut Steet crossing in Montclair, NJ on the now NJ Transit Booton line to see AFT 2101 come roaring through! Still as vivid today as it was then and created my affection for Reading T-1's. Then again, if it was steam...

Mid to late '80's

BM&R 425 Hoboken to Dover ('85?). (Pic of runby below!) Really put that light Pacific to work! Also sounded great as it whistled off very late at night as it passed through Montclair on its way to Hoboken earlier in that week before the Hoboken Festival and that trip. Nice to hear a steam whistle instead of the roar of GE U-34CH's.

Reading 2102 - Hoboken to Port Jervis & Hamburg to Harrisburg.

Most amazing to me is that I wished Hamburg was right around the corner from my parent's house back then, but as Montclair, NJ residents, it was not. Fast forward to 2001, parents move closer to my sister and brother-in-law. They are now Spring, PA residents. Right around the corner from Hamburg and now Port Clinton. Still waiting for the day I can come for a visit and see 2102 or 425 in steam again. I will be patient!

Until later,
Chris

P.S. Steve Gilbert - I have an off board question. Would you drop me an email when you get the chance?


crhauf@frontiernet.net