The 27.9-mile section of track between North Creek and Tahawus, NY, formerly of the D&H Adirondack Division and even more recently the Saratoga & North Creek, was sold at auction last week. The line was purchased by a newly-founded company, Doc N Duchess Rails LLC, which is owned by a New Mexico couple, John and Carol McClean-Wright. They are planning to reactivate the line and are hoping to be able to extract military-grade titanium ore from mine tailings that are on-site at the old Tahawus Mine, which was last active in 1989. If they pull it off, it's a win-win-win situation: the area gets more jobs, it's a source of titanium, and it will reduce the veritable mountains of mine tailings at Tahawus
I was really surprised to hear that Western Maryland Scenic Railroad is fund-raising to do an evaluation of "Western Maryland #734", which is really Lake Superior & Ishpeming #34 in disguise. WMSR restored it to operation in 1993, and pretty much ran the wheels off it for 23 years. WMSR operates a pretty rugged piece of trackage with sustained 3% grades, which means lots of operation with the throttle all the way out and the reverser down in the corner with the oil cans trying to eke out every last pound of tractive effort, and the #734 never missed a single season. That means lots of abuse without a major overhaul, just doing enough work in the offseason to keep it running for the next year. Those who rode the last year said that there was lots of steam leaks around the cylinders, and the valve timing was very out of square. There was a cracked cylinder casting in the '90s that took a miracle to fix, the ash pan and washout plugs have serious corrosion, the tender cistern was perforated and it's since been stored outdoors for 6 years without a capped stack. A need for major work and the fact that ridership had outgrown the #734 and required diesel helpers on every train, resulted in the WMSR management taking the #734 out of service and replacing it with C&O #1309. WMSR had said previously that the plan was to cosmetically restore and stabilize the engine and keep it on display, because it was so worn out and cost prohibitive to return to service. Now, WMSR is fundraising to do an evaluation for a return to service. The goal could be to chip away at #734 so she'll be ready to step in when #1309 comes due for her 1472, or maybe there are economies on running 734 on lighter trains.
What's really odd is that a couple years ago, when the #1309 restoration was mired in bad luck and bad decisions, WMSR released this huge press release saying that the #734 was completely used up and would basically never run again, and even if they did get it running, it wouldn't make sense with their business plan. But now, they're looking at returning the #734 to operation, or at least entertaining the thought. If I had to guess, at the time there were a lot of people saying "Screw it, just forget the #1309 and put the #734 back in operation", and management used that announcement as A) a way to shut those people up and B) to try and get more funding to finish #1209 by saying "Look, we have to get money to finish #1309 because our other steam locomotive is junk." Really ironic was that the whole push to replace #734 with #1309 was that #1309 was evaluated and found to be in excellent condition and wouldn't need much money or time to return to service, only for it to be found to be much worse off and take 7 years and $3.5 million to get it in service. The big thing is, there's been a change in management since then, so that might be the driving force behind this possible second lease on life for #734
Grand Canyon Railway had the same issue with growth and their LS&I Consolidation that WMSR has. When they started out with LS&I #29, the average Grand Canyon Railway train was 5 or 6 open-window cars, which the #29 could handle. The GCRY has 3% grades in both directions, and as the years have gone on, the trains have grown to a minimum of 12 stainless-steel cars, but more typically 15-18 cars. That requires a diesel helper both for climbing the grades, dynamic braking, and HEP generation. GCRY has also had the same issue with their ex-CB&Q Mikado, #4960.
From what I've heard, if you want to ride to the Grand Canyon behind steam, go now. They only run steam-powered trips a couple weekends a year now, and the rumor is that when they both come due for their inspection, there's no real intentions to overhaul them. The #29 went out of service last year, and I'm not sure when the #4960 is due. They purchased a Northern Pacific/SP&S Mikado back in 2007 to return to operation, presumably to replace the #29, but the restoration never happened and it was sold off. GCRY has figured out that their trains sell out regardless what is on point, and the EMD F40PHs they have are a lot cheaper to operate (they had some really cool MLW FPA-4s for a long time, sadly retired those in 2009 in favor of the F40PHs). They also have a water supply that is tenuous at best. After all, this territory is so arid that during WWII, the war department diverted EMD 567s needed for naval usage to produce FTs for the ATSF to continue operations down there uninterrupted.
GCRY does have a standing invitation to both ATSF #2926 and #3751 to come operate on the ex-ATSF rails, and #3751 has visited in the past. My guess is that Grand Canyon doesn't overhaul the #29, retires the #4960 when it's 1472 comes due and the only steam on the system will be on the rare occasions when #2926 and #3751 come visit. Provided that either of them can actually get there, since they would have to transit over BNSF and I don't know if BNSF is playing ball these days.
In reply to NickD :
I haven't checked GCYR in a few years, but tickets were not cheap then, and I can't imagine they've done anything but gone up significantly.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Looking at them, the prices are about on par with Reading & Northern's Reading-Jim Thorpe trips. But R&N runs much cooler equipment, IMO, with either the F-Units or regularly-scheduled steam locomotives.
The Chehalis-Centralia Railroad & Museum in Chehalis, Washington has apparently found themselves in an unfortunate and precarious situation, partly of their own making. The railroad operates 10 miles of the former Milwaukee Road trackage out of Chehalis and along the Chehalis River. Back in January, flooding along the river caused damage to the roadbed over five miles of the system, causing them to postpone excursions. Then recently they announced they were suspending all passenger operations for the foreseeable future. The first thought was that the flood repairs were going to take longer than expected, but it's since been stated that the issue is actually that they have been dropped by their insurance carrier and no other insurance carrier will take them on.
The reason for the loss of insurance is not due to the flooding but due to an accident that they had back in 2019. They were running one of their dinner trains in late October and were making a reverse move over a grade crossing (rear passenger car leading, engine at the front shoving the train back down the line) and hit an automobile. The train pinned the man in the car and he had to be extricated by first responders, and has injuries that have been deemed "permanent and progressive". The crossing had crossbucks and Yield signs only and the trainman did not dismount to flag the crossing. Regulations state that if you are marking a reverse move, or shove, over an unguarded crossing, you must stop before the crossing and have your brakeman dismount and flag the crossing. Not a suggestion, it's a must. It's especially a good idea when you are operating after dark, since your rear car doesn't have a headlight. The trainman not following the rule to flag the crossing on a reverse move resulting in a collision was likely enough to convince the insurers to drop them, but there may have been other issues before that gave them pause and caused them to take this move as well.
On top of this, the CCR&M's steam locomotive, a neat little logging Mikado formerly of the Cowlitz, Chehalis, & Cascade Railroad, was taken out of service in 2019 for need of heavy boiler work. Although some work has been performed, it still needs a lot more and it looks like the #15 won't be operational any time soon, leaving them with just a GE 44-tonner. Granted, as of now, even if they got #15 up and running, they can't operate it for lack of insurance. It sure paints a grim picture for the neat little line, and sadly the situation likely could have been avoided.
Actually, tourist railroads in Washington state as a whole are a pretty grim picture. According to one source that seems pretty knowledgeable, there has only been a total of 10 tourist railroads in the state since 1967. Of those, only 5 of them remain. The Chehalis-Centralia's steam locomotive is our of service, their track got severely damaged and their operations are indefinitely suspended due to lack of insurance. Lake Whatcom Railway slipped into obscurity after they stopped operating their ex-Northern Pacific 0-6-0, and according to one local, they no longer possess an operational locomotive after their diesel suffered freeze damage to the engine and has dead batteries (a couple thousand to replace batteries on a diesel) and they are just doing handcart and speeder rides. They also suffered a bunch of flood damage this year. The Chelatchie Prairie Railroad is also rumored to be lacking an operational locomotive of their own, after their neat logging 2-8-2T was taken out of service a few years back and they fried the main generator this November on their diesel. The only two tourist railroads left in regular operation in the state are the Yakima Trolley Museum and the Northwest Railway Museum. The Mt. Rainier Scenic, for years one of the big ones in Washington, folded up in 2020 due to the parent company having some sort of financial and legal troubles, and those who worked there said that they don't count on any operations in the foreseeable future due to all the trouble with the IRS. Lake Whatcom Railway was actually leasing a diesel from Mt. Rainier Scenic, but lost access to that when Mt. Rainier imploded and someone said that the last time they saw that diesel on the Lake Whatcom the wheel flanges were worn so thin that you could use them as a pizza cutter. There was a group in Shelton trying to get a section of the old Simpson Railroad line active, but someone says that the town of Shelton decided that what they really needed was another bike trail instead.
One of the more interesting logging railroad locomotives is Little River Railroad #110. Built for the Little River Railroad, which ran between Elkton and Maryville, Tennessee, the #110 was the smallest standard-gauge Pacific in the US. Built by Baldwin in 1911, it had 47" drivers, 16"x22" cylinders, Walschaerts valve gear and a 180psi boiler. It weighed under 55 tons for the locomotive, had an engine wheelbase of 23.3 feet, could be operated on 40lb rail and generated 18,000lbs of tractive effort. It was a saturated steam locomotive and had an unusually large amount of grate area for the engine, due to extremely poor quality coal. It became a favorite of the Little River's owner's wife, Margaret Townsend, and hauled passenger trains until 1938, shortly after her death, when the Little River dropped passenger service. In fact, the #110 was even used to haul Margaret Townsend's funeral train. It was sold to the Smoky Mountain Railroad in 1940, and was operated by them until 1954, when decreasing reliability forced them to retire it. It was sold to the new Little River Railroad in Coldwater Michigan in '75 and restored to operation, where it still operates.
A photo of the #110 next to NKP #765 and Pere Marquette #1225 at Owosso, Michigan shows just how small the #110 is.
Little River #110 between Little River 0-4-0T #1 and PM 2-8-4 #1225. Little River #1 is not from the original TN incarnation of the Little River Railroad, but it's actual provenance or even year of construction is unknown. The driving wheels and frame are dated 1908, but the boiler appears to be much newer. As far as anyone can tell, it may have been a combination of several locomotives. While it actually generates as much tractive effort as the #110, it cannot sustain that level of pulling for very long.
This just popped up on my YT feed - 5 German WWII steam locomotives in Bosnia that have been in daily freight revenue service since the end of the war.
Shows what a little preventive maintenance can do. I have long thought that steam engines in regular service were long gone. The last one I remember in the U.S. was somewhere in, or near, Texas. On a trip to CA we paced a steam locomotive for miles running at about 100 mph. Back then, there were no speed limits in that part of the world and no traffic either. I want to say it was a Berkshire but I'm probably wrong about that. It would have been 1954 or, possibly, 1957 and I was so young I'm amazed I still remember it happening.
Lou Manglass
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
I know Poland ran steam locomotives well into the '90s and had quite a few Kriegsloks too, along with a ton of stored USATC S-180 Consolidations. They held onto the S-180s post-WWII in the event that they were invaded again. In the '90s, they finally disposed of the S-180s with a bunch of old Cold War munitions that they needed to dispose of as well. There was also at least one Kriegsloks that made it to the US as well. After WWII, the US kind of raided the German cookie jar and brought a bunch of stuff back to the US, and that included 3 Kriegsloks, including one with a condensing tender. They sat at Fort Eustis until sometime in the '50s before the USATC finally cut them up. One was even taken out to the 1949 Railroad Fair in Chicago. Even more interesting was the streamlined "2-8-2" with a V-twin steam motor on each axle that we brought back to study. B&O had considered a similar concept at one point, but after the debacle with the 4-4-4-4 duple George Emerson, they wisely decided just to go with EMD products for their top varnish.
TheMagicRatchet said:Shows what a little preventive maintenance can do. I have long thought that steam engines in regular service were long gone. The last one I remember in the U.S. was somewhere in, or near, Texas. On a trip to CA we paced a steam locomotive for miles running at about 100 mph. Back then, there were no speed limits in that part of the world and no traffic either. I want to say it was a Berkshire but I'm probably wrong about that. It would have been 1954 or, possibly, 1957 and I was so young I'm amazed I still remember it happening.
Lou Manglass
It probably would have been a Northern or a Mountain or maybe one of the ATSF Hudsons. Berkshires never really took off in that part of the US. Missouri Pacific had a few but they were short-drivered machines and they rebuilt them all into Victory-class Northerns during WWII and had retired pretty much all steam by 1952. ATSF also had some Berkshires, the only Western railroad to purchase them new, but again, they were 63" drivered machines that I've read described as a "1922 engine with a 1927 wheel arrangement", essentially a Mikado that Baldwin tossed a 4-wheel trailing truck under the back of because they were the hot new thing.
The Little River Railroad in Tennessee also very briefly owned the very first logging Mallet built, and one of only 2-4-4-2s built for US usage. They needed a locomotive that had more power than a 6-coupled locomotive but they had 30 degree curves on their line, which precluded the usage of a 2-8-2 or 2-8-0. Baldwin responded with a neat little 2-4-4-2 Mallet, with 47" drivers, 15" x 22" high-pressure cylinders, 23" x 22" low-pressure cylinders, and a 200psi boiler, generating 24,600lbs of tractive effort. It was delivered in 1909, as Little River Railroad #126, and then almost immediately the Little River Railroad discovered it wouldn't traverse the curvature of the line. Oops. Little River Railroad sent it back, and the 2-4-4-2 was then resold. The subsequent chain of ownership is as follows:
1910 - 1920: Columbia River Belt Line Railroad, Blind Slough, OR where it was named "Skookum".
1920 - 1924: Carlisle-Pennell Lumber Company, Onalaska, WA, where it was numbered #7.
1924 - 1930: Transferred to Carlisle subsidiary Newaukum Valley Railroad Co., also Onalaska, WA.
1930 - 1931: Leased to Mud Bay Logging Co., Olympia, WA
1931 - 1933: Returned to Carlisle Lumber Company, Onalaska, WA.
1933 - 1955: Deep River Logging Co., Deep River, WA.
In 1955, as Deep River Logging was winding down operations, the #7 derailed on approach to a bridge and slide down an embankment. Deep River Logging adjusted the track alignment and finished their logging, then tore up the rails, leaving the #7 lying on it's side. It was purchased in 1956 by Charles Morrow, who took a team in, dismantled the locomotive where it lay, and skidded it out of the woods in 1960. It kicked around the west coast for decades until in 2015 a restoration began in earnest, and in 2018 it was finally reassembled and returned to operation at the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi, Oregon.
In reply to NickD :
That Mallet looks cool.
In reply to DjGreggieP :
It's a neat little machine, and a surprising survivor. It's amazing that Deep River Logging didn't just cut it up and scrap it at the same time they were yanking up the rails.
Shown alongside McCloud River logging Prairie #25 and Polson Logging Co. logging Mikado #2
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