The SP&S 700 stretched her legs and muscles Monday taking a scheduled freight from Vancouver yard to Longview. Tying on to the front of the BNSF power, the 700 handled the 4,300 plus tons with ease, starting both on straights and curves. Servicing, watering and turning in Longview, she waited for another freight to come in to power back to Vancouver. This train was close in tonnage to what will be on the excursion train in April, and after the earlier workout the 700 had no hesitation in making short work of pulling for home. Cutting off, the locomotive returned to Brooklyn Yard to await her April 20-23 "Homecoming Excursion". The 700 performed flawlessly, and now looks forward to strutting her stuff in 7 weeks. Please visit the PRPA website at: www.sps700.org for more information, or call 503-649-6602.

The Pacific Railroad Preservation Association greatly thanks the BNSF for the opportunity to exercise both crew and locomotive before April. This test run could not have happened without the approval, help and cooperation of the railroad as a corporation, and all the individuals involved - THANK YOU ONE AND ALL.
For the PRPA and SP&S 700,
John Cox



johnpcox@juno.com

Congratulations to the 700 and her fine crew. Scott Lindsay called me yesterday from Longview to tell me how great everything was going (aside from the long delay in getting to depart). She must have been an awesome sight leading the two diesels and 4300 tons! Those of us from TVRM who are going out to ride the Homecoming Excursion are truly looking forward to seeing this fine machine in action.

aw90h@cs.com

I'll second that. So when are we going to see the pictures from the freight run?

> Those of us from TVRM who are going out to
> ride the Homecoming Excursion are truly
> looking forward to seeing this fine machine
> in action.


Surviving Steam Photo Archive
rjenkins@railfan.net

Nothing like being late to the party! Less than an hour short of 24 years later I just happened to revisit this posting and decided to clarify the "with ease".

John wrote "the 700 handled the 4,300 plus tons with ease". Yes, that certainly would have been true on good rail, but we had the misfortune of being the first train departing Vancouver following the weed spray train. Greg Kamholz sure had sweat on his brow as he battled the slippery mess all the way north with that tonnage. We traded seats for the return trip to Vancouver and it was a picnic for me on the not-yet-sprayed-main, half the train weight on great rail.

Definitely a necro'd post, pre-9/11, pre-PTC, when I saw the topic I thought "how did I miss this?" since I live in the Portland area. But it is always better to continue an old thread than to start a new one IMHO. Would this trip be pulled off today?

Has to be said that I clicked on it REALLY quickly when I saw that thread title!

I'm surprised no-one got it on video and put it on YouTube.

How many people were on YouTube in 2001 to post it there?

That would have been pretty impressive if they did, especially considering that YouTube wasn't even in business until December 2005!

If you're aiming for the 25th anniversary, you're a year early.

This also shows why it's critical to include dates on posts, or if it's software, version numbers. I recall seeing software repositories with 20 files, all labeled "Newest version of randromprogam.exe" even thought some were 20 generations old by then.