Given the current US Class 1 attitudes towards mainline steam, how will this engine get to Tacoma under power? Does CPR reach that far into Washington State?Wesley

The Mt. Rainier Scenic will be running (steam) trains out of Freighthouse Square on June 24th, 25th and 26th. It's on their web site (and I have first hand knowledge that short of some sort of disaster, they will be there). So there will be some sort of steam in Tacoma this month! :-)

Well, I have to applaud them for keeping a good secret! Brian, you're clearly the one in the know with all this (LOVE your site, by the way), but none of the railfans I know, who usually have their ears to ground, had any clue this was going to happen. I'm guessing that would have something to do with the prolonged manner it's taken to get this thing going. It'd be pretty easy to dismiss this effort until we see 2100 going up the Tacoma Hill as just another "pie in the sky" dream. I have to ask the question of the hour here: Where's 2100 going to housed? In the Tacoma Rail shops? If so, she'd take up an entire bay at least. Are there any other secure structures she could be housed and maintained on that line? I can't think of any. Hey, what about Tacoma Rail's passenger equipment? I rode on these cars at the last open house at their yard, and asked why they bought them. The employee I talked with said they were for eventual excursion service. Is this what they had in mind at that time? There's a wye at Fredrickson, right? Will 2100 negotiate that? I'd love to see her as far south as Morton, but there's no way those bridges would hold that weight. I'm going to cringe the first time 2100 takes that tight curve from Freighthouse Square to the hill in Tacoma. And if she doesn't push the outside rail right over, I'll be loving that stack talk as she strains against that grade south! Dear God, I hope not. I'd much rather see her in an altogether different paint job than that partial "Reading/what the" paint job I've been seeing. Besides, we're as far from Reading rails as you can get. There's no connection here to it's home road. Wouldn’t surprise me if she got a totally different paint job and letting. But like you said, better running than not. I'll go ride behind it even if she's painted pink!

Brian,I am quite aware of that and I hope that it goes well. The specific question posed concerned the Golden Pacific on the following weekend. We asked the Tall Ships people because of the implied tie-in on the schedules page and because people running a major event usually know what else is going on in their baliwick because they have to work around each other. GME