N&W #611 and #1218 running side by side on the Norfolk Southern's Roanoke-Radford line during the 1987 NRHS convention. #611 was hauling a train of passenger cars, while #1218 was assigned to a 100-car coal train, with the two of them running side by side for miles on end. The 1987 NRHS convention is still cited as the greatest, and inadvertently lead to NRHS conventions being smaller in size, after the 1988 Tri-State convention disastrously backfired in an attempt to outdo the '87 convention.
Racing along on home territory and passing under the old disused coaling tower at Vickers, VA in September of 1989. This was the Powhattan Arrow excursion sponsored by the Roanoke Chapter NRHS, and in a rare occurence, #611 ran with no auxiliary water canteen (one of very few times that happened) and an all-Tuscan red passenger consist (which at the time was very unusual, as ex-Southern Railway stainless steel cars were usually in the excursion consist).
N&W #611 and #1218 at Dalton, Georgia with a special excursion to celebrate that 25th anniversary of the Southern/Norfolk Southern corporate steam program. The trip had left Chattanooga as a tripleheader, with Southern #4501 in the mix, but at Ooltewah, TN, the #4501 and several cars were cutoff and ran back to Chattanooga as a roundtrip, while #1218 and #611 would continue onwards. This event was one of the final times that #1218 ran. It performed another trip, a roundtrip from Huntsville to Chattanooga, and then was parked for an extensive overhaul. There were plans to have it ready by 1996, but NS ended their steam program in 1994, and so it has never run again.
#611 on a ferry move over the Pocahontas Division at Ingleside, WV with 18 cars and no diesel helper.
The same ferry move, at Ada, WV.
And that ferry move again, at Bluefield.
A doubleheader with N&W #611 and Frisco #1522 for the 1994 NRHS convention, run between Atlanta and Macon. At the end of the year, #611 would fall silent when Norfolk Southern ended their steam program, due to mounting costs, the loss of a good chunk of their passenger car fleet, and #611 coming due for overhaul while #1218 still wasn't done. Frisco #1522 would run another 8 years, before also going cold. While #611 has made a comeback, #1522 doesn't look like she'll be under pressure any time in the foreseeable future.
N&W #611 on the final run of her first excursion career, a ferry run from Greenville, NC to Roanoke, VA on December 7th, 1994. She was only about an hour out of Roanoke in this shot.
On the subject of doubleheaders, Saturday was the big doubleheader trip on the Reading & Northern. I learned that there was a special reason for the occasion too: Saturday was Andy Muller's 75th birthday party. Helluva way to celebrate. I wish I could have gone, but there are plenty of photos and videos, and I'm sure it was a zoo down there.
From what I heard, because they were hauling the same 19 cars that #2102 was able to haul unassisted, the #425 was pretty much just along for the ride, other than the occasional assist when starting or on the grades at Hometown.
Niles Canyon Railway. Put it on your bucket list. Thank me later. NCRy is home to a prodigious restoration-oriented operation. They have multiple steam locomotives, including at least one 2-6-6-2T logging locomotive, a three-truck shay, a 3-truck Heisler, and a collection of early/oddball diesels to rival just about anywhere (EMD NW2, SD9, GP9, multiple GE centercab switchers, an Alco S6, a WP F unit, a minuscule Plymouth critter, and a Krauss-Maffei ML4000, among others, plus a couple of railbuses and lots of rolling stock.)
What a rabbit hole!
Check it out!
In reply to Recon1342 :
That's a very cool museum. Maybe I'll get out there one day. They got SP #1744 from the Iowa Pacific Holdings auction, which was a pretty big score. #1744 was one of the last active steam locomotives on the SP roster and hauled a bunch of fantrips, including through Niles Canyon, in the late '50s.
I am curious why they list SP #2467 in their collection, since everything says that it is in Sacramento at the California State Railroad Museum. There's also now information when you click on it. SP #2472 was at Niles Canyon for a while, but it was owned by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum and went up to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad when the GGRM moved there last year.
A Western Pacific GP20, with the big Pyle National "Golden Glow" headlamp that WP equipped all of their early road switchers with, leads a freight through the Niles Canyon. Southern Pacific had already taken the easy route along the left bank of Alameda Creek more than two decades earlier, whicnh forced WP engineers to bore two tunnels and build a large steel bridge to pass through the canyon.
Western Pacific GP9 #729, in the later green and orange paint, with the large Pyle National headlamp. The "Golden Glow" lamps used uranium glass for the lense, hence the name. Popular in the steam locomotive age, they pretty much fell out of favor in the diesel era, but Western Pacific loved them for some reason. All of their GP7s, GP9s, GP20s, GP35s and GP40s were delivered equipped with these headlights and would retain them into the late '70s, when they began replacing them with standard twin sealed-beam headlights. WP also ordered dual controls stands on all their early EMD road switchers, as well as winterization hatches. They were also preferential to high front hoods, but when EMD informed them that high hoods would be an extra cost on their GP35s and all models moving forward, WP went to ordering short hoods.
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