Rob, you pretty much nailed it, nailed it GOOD!!

I caught one little kid sailing through a vestibule as I was headed forward when the air trashed-- guess it wasn't you!

Those were some neat times, and long days.... 32 hours without sleep on the LVRR trip.

And high railroad officials weren't afraid of being seen on those trips; Bob Haldeman, LVRR Trustee, was aboard.

Sometimes, it's hard to belive all that 60s and 70s stuff actually happened.

hpincus@mindspring.com

You want "fiasco"? The October 1973 Steamtown trip, using NKP 759 between Boston and Montpelier, VT. Way late heading north, complete with B&O 50-ton hopper of coal on rear of train, with a drumhead sign hanging (upside down!!) from the brakewheel. 759 spent the night at Montpelier Jct., and the train was dragged a few miles into downtown over the M&B by two Alco switchers. Next morning, frost was all over everything (it got down to about 25 that night), including the coach seats. Due to the hopper on the south end of the train (now against the 759's tender, there was no steam heat until the coal car was set off for loading at Northfield, VT. And that took a few hours, due to balky front-end loaders. The train finally got to White River Jct. about sunset, and back to Boston way after midnight (like 3 am). It sure was fun to chase and photograph, though.

hpincus@mindspring.com

> Specifics, no--but there were lots of
> allegations that your description matched
> what happened to NKP 759 in an incident that
> graced the cover of the premeire issue of
> Railfan Magazine in 1974. The incident in
> that case happened just shy of the summit of
> the Mt. Pocono grade on a run from Hoboken
> to Scranton. Two EL GP9s had to help lift
> the train the last quarter-mile to the
> summit.

Spoke with on-the-scene witness Jim Boyd last night, and he said the rails were NOT greased in that 759 incident--it was but a face-saving excuse for, in a printable variation of the description, "the hill being bigger than the engineer's ego".

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

My wife & I were on Railfan Mag's 25th anniversary excursion out of steamtown. over 100 degrees that day. First we sat for about 45 minutes in the heat while a photo op for the staff only was arranged. Then during our lunch stop at Crsco station the train was hit from behind by a locomotive. People were pretty banged up- cuts & bruises. My wife got a mild concussion and aggrivated her back condition.

bas1210@comcast.net

I was convinced at the time the train was too heavy for the engine. E-L must have thought so too as the Geeps showed up so quickly they must have been waiting at the top of the hill.

RDG 2101 stalled climbing out of Glenwood Jct. on the line PGH - Wheeling on a Chessie Steam Special. B&O had a GP-40 come down right away and I was later told the 2101 actually got a lot further up the hill than they thought it would. So they do plan ahead.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

It was interesting to ride, too. I was introduced to poobah cars on that train.

CNJ combo 303 and a sealed-window coach (both painted baby blue) were on the head-end and reserved for VIP's, except the coach was half VIP's with a bedsheet separating the Important from the Unimportant. A do-it-yourself Jim Crow poobah car.

Except the train was not wyed overnight and when they switched the two poobah cars to the head end they had Unimportant People closer to the engine than the poobahs. The Unimportant People were ejected from the poobah car and reseated in the coaches, displacing other people etc.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

> Looking for nominations for the
> "worst" (as in most spectacular,
> important, or other quantitative measure)
> steam or diesel excursion fiasco
> remembered.......

Early 1960's, CB&Q 5632 on a Minnesota Railfan Association trip from Minneapolis to LaCrosse and return. There was a dinner laid on in LaCrosse, which went very well, and shortly (several miles) after we departed on the return leg to Minneapolis, 5632 ran out of fuel (late on a Saturday evening, if memory serves). By the time they got a 1200 gallon tanker there, the boiler was cold, and the truck got 5632 and its train as far as a set of fuel standpipes, I think.

Anyhow we were just about 24 hours late getting into the Great Northern Depot (no longer there) in downtown Mpls. I was 12 or 13 and my parents had allowed me to go on the trip alone.

Wonderful trip. 5632 was awesome.



Strange O-5 website
dougb@sunserver.com

A T-1 (2100 or 2102) stalled on the Gettysburg Branch with a Ramble. They found sticking brakes on one of the cars and once that was resolved the engine started the train and continued the trip.

None of the Rambles was a disaster; it was people running their own relatively new engines on their own RR with their own cars. 2100 had bad packing once; broke a draft gear part another time (2102 was available); a drought caused FP-7's to sub for steam on another trip.

BTW on stalling, Semaphore published a boxed record of PRR sounds including an I1sa stalling Westward on the Middle Division around Tyrone. The engineer keeps trying to get a handle on the train but he keeps losing his roll.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

First geared engine triple header event.

Harold and I had built 17 out of a kit while Jack was machining parts to finish her. Got her together the morning she was to pull the train while the geared power ran ahead to get their photo freights.

On the way up the hill, a nut unscrewed off the union link, the pin fell out, and one side went lame. Harold and I walked back and found the pin in the ballast while carloads of railfans watched our embarassment.

No nut, but we wired the pin in with a bit of bailing wire and made the rest of the trip.

Similar thing happened going uphill with 40 at Georgetown Loop one fine day. Hugo Lackman was running and I was firing, things were going well, when just as we were running on to the turntale bridge the front end of the engine jumped up in the air and crashed back down again. Emergency stop on the bridge - BTW, there was no walkway on that bridge.

So, peering over the edge of the runningboard I spotted the retainer on the first driver had worked loose and been chopped off by the crosshead. Eased back onto ground and crawled under and got the remaining twisted iron out of the way.

Rode but not worked - an endless wait in a dismal swamp on the Southern line from Charlotte to Columbia with 4501 at the head end after the side rod retainer had lost its nut on the left side sometime in the mid 1980's. Temperatures were soaring, the motley collection of Southern excursion coaches climate control had given up the ghost on their minimal battery power. Fortunately, a Claytor was at the throttle, so it only took an hour and a half for a diesel relief engine to arrive and pull us back to Charlotte. Car hosts from NRHS became Gestapo-like in their intensity to prevent anybody from getting off the sealed cars for a breath of fresh air.

OK, so given how badly we executed these events, any wonder why we don't do more of them today, or get more cooperation?

dave


irondave@bellsouth.net

An Iron Horse Ramble stopped at Wayne Junction on a Saturday AM, boarded passengers and left. As we crossed the Schuylkill River a well-dressed lady asked me "Excuse me, where is this train going?" I replied, "Gettysburg."

We stopped at Pottstown so she could catch a train to Reading Terminal.

Electric City Trolley Museum Association

That is more common than you might think. I was involved with ski trains that ran from Hoboken Terminal to Vernon Valley on the NYS&W. We had a lady get on our train (past people checking tickets) and only notice something was "wrong" when we stopped at the NYS&W's Hawthorne station.
Luckily, she was looking to get off at the NJ Transit Hawthorne station! We actually shortened her walk by about 3 blocks.

Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society

I'd have to check my records - but it was an early 80's excursion from Erie, PA to Buffalo, NY (one of the 'Bridges to Buffalo' tape excursions). Graham Claytor was at the throttle, and this was also well prior to speed restrictions - we were passing Conrail TV's on the parallel Water Level Route. Anyway, I was riding the baggage door behind the big 4-8-4, moving about 70, and the crew seemed nonplussed. Radio chatter started... Uh, Mr. Claytor, Sir, you just overran the photo runby location... Brakes come on a few minutes later, train stops. You could actually hear Claytor over the radio, asking the dispatcher for a REVERSE MOVE on the main, against traffic and CTC signals, BACK to the photo runby location he passed. I can only imagine the dispatcher getting that request from 'the boss', but he got it. The entire train REVERESED back about four miles on the single-track NKP main, at about 20mph, maybe 18 cars worth. We detrained and did the photo runby. But only THE BIG BOSS would have ever been able to pull that one off. I'd like to see anybody get away with that one today....

randygustafson@stoneconsulting.com

> I'd have to check my records - but it was an
> early 80's excursion from Erie, PA to
> Buffalo, NY (one of the 'Bridges to Buffalo'
> tape excursions). Graham Claytor was at the
> throttle, and this was also well prior to
> speed restrictions - we were passing Conrail
> TV's on the parallel Water Level Route.
> Anyway, I was riding the baggage door behind
> the big 4-8-4, moving about 70, and the crew
> seemed nonplussed. Radio chatter started...
> Uh, Mr. Claytor, Sir, you just overran the
> photo runby location... Brakes come on a few
> minutes later, train stops. You could
> actually hear Claytor over the radio, asking
> the dispatcher for a REVERSE MOVE on the
> main, against traffic and CTC signals, BACK
> to the photo runby location he passed. I can
> only imagine the dispatcher getting that
> request from 'the boss', but he got it. The
> entire train REVERESED back about four miles
> on the single-track NKP main, at about
> 20mph, maybe 18 cars worth. We detrained and
> did the photo runby. But only THE BIG BOSS
> would have ever been able to pull that one
> off. I'd like to see anybody get away with
> that one today....

Of course you could today; you DO have to get the dispatcher's authority to make a reverse movement in CTC territory, but once you have it, you can do it. Sounds like he complied with everything necessary, and made up for missing the run-by site. He was always a class act.

>
>This past May my father and I traveled to Germany to take part of a Dampf Plus event from Dortmund to Hamburg and return. The locomotive was a very large drivered 4-6-2, and they advertised high speeds,and steam only.
We boarded and through our friend kept asking if there was a photo stop. Yes, was the reply each time.
The train pulls into a local station, and the fire brigade fills up the tender. We along with most other get out and head up to the engine. A grand party up at the engine. The engine driver gets in, sets the valve motion, pulls the throttle, and moves out onto the main line. We are video tapeing this, and in my view finder, the train is getting smaller.....
At this point all of the people who we thought where part of the excursion, smile and walk to there cars to go chase. In the end, my father and I plus two other German railfans are left at the station. We did not need a translator for one of them.
What followed was worthy of a Keystone cops episode.

Hugh Sinn


sinn-family@msn.com

The Hyde Street Pier at San Francisco Maritime was built to ferry people to Sausalito. The last time a ferry operated from there was 1940.

To this day we often find people sitting on the Park's ferrry Eureka which is displayed there, waiting for the boat to leave.

The modern day ferry leaves from its own dock about five blocks down. People do not read signs when they are on vacation!



ted_miles@nps.gov