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Is her first assignment still to be the premier freight, as per RDG tradition?
Congrats to the RBMN, who continues to prove to the country that they're the best Class II railroad.

I saw yesterday, and I'm really looking forward to it. I took the RDC trip with the National Museum of Industrial History last year and got to tour the Port Clinton shops and see the restoration underway, and then I did the Reading-Jim Thorpe Fall Foliage trip with #425 in the fall, and both times had an excellent day.

I noticed that on Facebook they were saying that if you had tickets for the cancelled F-Unit excursions from 2020, you get first dibs on tickets for the #2102 trips.

R&N had a pretty great year last year, as they beat out traffic records for passenger and freight over even pre-pandemic times. They handled approximately 1,000 carloads more of timber products, and purchased 153 additional coal hoppers and three new coal conveyors for transloading operations. Their passenger operations handled 225,175 riders, an increase of 75,000 over its pre-pandemic high, after adding more trips, equipment, and points of origin and are planning to begin service from Pittston later this year, along with the purchase of the new cars from Iowa Pacific

I rode behind 2102 on its first Iron Horse Ramble (Phila. to Gettysburg) in the spring of 1962, and I can't wait to take another ride behind her. I have always believed the Reading Rambles set the standard to which every other operator should aspire.

Hunters Run grade was a good place to see and hear her work - both coming and going. Then she gets on the Lebanon Valley Branch and gets up some speed to Reading

Phil Mulligan.

That particular Ramble was a fabulous trip. After leaving Philadelphia with 2100, at Birdsboro, Colorado Fuel and Iron had camelback 0-4-0 No. 4 under steam and the two locomotives exchanged whistle salutes. Further west, at Sheridan, E.J. Lavino Co. had both of its 0-6-0T's under steam for more whistling. Arriving at Rutherford Yard near Harrisburg, we found 2102 waiting for us. It took over and handled our train to Gettysburg and then back to Reading, where a pair of FP-7's took over for the final sprint back to Philadelphia. (2100, meanwhile, deadheaded back to Reading, towing several diesels headed to Reading for inspections and servicing.) What a great day with steam!

Tickets went on sale at 9am today. Trip will include the usual layover at Jim thorpe.

Anyone on a pool for how fast they're gone?

The absolute "perfect" scenario in such a situation (any concert, etc.) is for the last tickets to sell only minutes before departure. If they sell out in a half-hour (think arena rock concert tickets of old), you're doing something both right and wrong.

According to some of the Facebook comments, the higher class seats were sold out before lunch. It's just coach seats from what I hear. The good news is, they've got plenty of passenger cars now, and the #2102 can haul more than the #425.

I scored my two tickets for May 28 at 9:02 a.m. today on-line. I am stoked!

As someone who works in the live entertainment industry I can assure you this is not the case. The sooner an event sells out the better. If it sells out fast and the demand is there, you add additional performances “extended by popular demand!”

In the concert and sports businesses, that usually means the scalper "bots" bought up a lot of the tickets and you'll see them later on StubHub, etc. for jacked-up prices, sometimes way jacked-up. Although I can't imagine that happening for a steam excursion. Before the internet, if you had the time, one could go to the venue and camp out overnight in hopes of scoring a really good seat for an event at a decent price, and also save the "ticket service" fee, for buying directly from the venue. Gave the little guy a chance to get a front row seat for their favorite band occasionally.

Depends who we favor.

The idea behind my "scenario" is that everyone who wants to see the band/ride the train/whatever GETS THE CHANCE. You don't sell out in 15 minutes. A hardcore fan who couldn't get the day off until the last minute can drive up and get tickets at the last minute. The venue sells out, the band gets their guarantee, the venue has a full house to sell drinks to, etc. Everybody's happy except the person who got there after that guy before him buys that last ticket.

With something like a mainline excursion, you can't (well, normally) just go and add more cars. You don't just add a second section behind UP 3985. And how long has it been since, say, SR or UP was able to add a second trip because of demand? I think those days were gone before the Chessie Steam Special started the trend of big, long passenger trains in 1977-81.

Now, the trend of first/premium class cars selling out instantly seemingly no matter the price has certainly inspired some operations, including the Reading & Northern, to expand their first class cars--which used to be 1-3 cars on the back of specials and are now half or more of some mainline specials (because few want to save coaches in mainline condition?)...........

Unless they add more dome space (they do have two more now thanks to the IP sale), there were only two seats left in the dome for the May trip as of a few weeks ago.

My friends and I converted our F unit dome tickets to dome on this trip and R&N's passenger department personnel were extremely helpful.

Looking forward to it!

Joshua

I've taken four trips with the Reading & Northern (one Lehigh Gorge with the rebuilt GP30s, one Lehigh Gorge with #425, the RDC charter trip to Girardville with the National Museum of Industrial History, and a Reading-Jim Thorpe trip with #425) and every time has been an absolute delight. The R&N passenger department knows their stuff, that's for sure.

I'm going to go down and chase #2102 on May 28th, and then hopefully ride behind her for one of the fall trips. I'd also like to see #425 in action again sometime this year before her ticket runs out