Also, R&N, not content to rest on their laurels after their historic doubleheader last Saturday, has announced this for tomorrow:
"Take off this Friday and chase 2102 in revenue freight service. The locomotive will depart Port Clinton mid morning heading to Tamaqua, Reading, and beyond!"
Looks like 2022 is The Year Of #2102. I kind of feel bad for Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, after the big excitement around #1309 being fired up, they've largely been overshadowed by the antics at R&N.
Reading & Northern #425, back in the era where it was the Blue Moutain & Reading and #425 still wore black paint and a high-mounted headlight, alongside NKP #765 at Temple, PA. This was during the ill-fated 1988 NRHS convention, hosted in New Jersey.
NKP #765 at Lyons, PA with the infamous "Readingsburg" excursion that was the final note to the disastrous 1988 NRHS convention. Planned by the Tri-State NRHS chapter, the plan was for a roundtrip from Bound Brook, NJ to Harrisburg, PA, a trip of approximately 420 miles. In the months leading up to the event, the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society tried to dissuade such a long trip, citing the 40mph speed limit for steam excursions over Conrail and the need to add about 2 hours for servicing the locomotive, but their advice fell on deaf ears. The morning of the trip, everyone got ready to go at Bound Brook, then realized there was no engine. Instructions had never been given to Conrail to ferry it to the departure spot from where it had been parked the night before. After 2 hours of waiting for it to be moved, they left and headed west, falling further and further behind schedule. By the time they reached Reading, they had realized that to do the full trip to Harrisburg and back would have them arriving back at Bound Brook, NJ well after midnight. NRHS organizers made the decision to turn the trip around and head back to Bound Brook. This caused a snag though, because a number riders were planning to catch the Broadway Limited at Harrisburg to go home, as well as the fact that there were people who were supposed to get on for just the Temple-Harrisburg-Temple segment. NRHS members scrambled to buy taxicab tickets for those headed to Harrisburg, and according to those at Temple, they never even got so much as an apology or explanation. There was also considerable ire, because they had run a Bound Brook-Reading trip with #765 a couple days before but at considerably less cost and over a more roundabout scenic route with more mileage. As the FWRHS folks say "We spent a year in Jersey one week" and the whole affair led to them keeping a much tighter reins on what excursions they ran and events they attended.
What a sight to see those two engines doubleheading like that! Thanks for the video NickD. It seemed (to me, anyway) that 425 was often "along for the ride" but certainly there when needed. Wow!
Lou Manglass
TheMagicRatchet said:What a sight to see those two engines doubleheading like that! Thanks for the video NickD. It seemed (to me, anyway) that 425 was often "along for the ride" but certainly there when needed. Wow!
Lou Manglass
Some people on Facebook were saying they also overheard the crew on #425 was having issues with the swinging firebox doors (#425 is hand-fired, unlike #2102) and that was also contributing to #425's status of just tagging along, since they didn't want to work it to hard if they couldn't reliably fire it. But the other part of it was just that #2102 reliably handled 19 passenger cars all by herself, so #425 wasn't really needed. It helped getting moving and on some of the steep grades though, according to those who were present. I'm somewhat okay with missing the event, based on some of the complaints of traffic and crowds, but also there are those who pitch a fit if there is even one other person visible in their shot, so it might just be those folks making noise.
On the return trip, they also cut off the steam locomotives at Port Clinton and had SD50s #5018 and #5019 (which followed at a distance to lend an assist all day) take the train the rest of the way to Reading. I thought it was just because they didn't want to deal with backing both locomotives all the way back to Port Clinton afterwards, but then someone said it was because normally they change crews at Port Clinton so that the crew isn't on the road too long. But they only have two crews certified on steam locomotives and both were on the road all day, so they didn't have two more crews (or even one, if they just decided to take #425 off and let #2102 handle the last leg alone) to take over.
I hope to get down to R&N more this fall. I'd like to go ride behind #2102 for one of the fall trips on Saturday and then chase the F-Units on Sunday, and I really want to go down for the last run of #425 on November 5th and 6th before she goes down for her 1472.
914Driver said:The Pichi Richi Railroad rides on narrow gage track, the engine is called a Coffee Pot.
At first I thought that was the stuff from Narita Dream Farm in Japan.
Here's Shay 2 rolling in to Casa, WV on August 12, 2022. Awesome place to visit.
In reply to Scotty Con Queso :
I need to get down there someday, although it might pay off to wait for them to get the bridge open to hook them to the Durbin & Greenbriar Valley. I also need to get to Western Maryland Scenic Railroad and see C&O #1309 operate, because that is the nearest operating articulated locomotive to me, and I don't expect that to change any time soon. In theory, I have time on that one, since they just got #1309 operating, but that's also kind of a dangerous thought process.
NKP #765 at Birdsboro, PA on July 24th, 1988. This was the first of two trips from Jersey into Pennsylvania during the 1988 NRHS convention, and the better of the two. They ran down Conrail’s West Trenton line to West Falls, Pennsylvania, and then west on the former Reading main line to Reading. There was a stop at the Blue Mountain & Reading, for a ride behind behind #425 with a return via Allentown. While it went better than the "Readingsburg" trip, this trip was notorious for the Dutch Lunch debacle. Blue Mountain & Reading took them up to the north end at Hamburg, for a lunch that was organized by the NRHS chapter that was supposed to be along the lines of a Dutch Dinner. What they served that day was a piece of chicken in a thick gravy with peas and a very hard piece of cornbread and a really bad interpretation of Shoo-Fly Pie. The other problem was that 600 or so people got off the train at the north end of the BM&R line, Hamburg, expecting this lunch and there were like 4 picnic tables which then left 500+ people with the issue of finding a place to eat. About half of the people got served before they blew the whistle to get back on the train, leaving more than half of the people unfed (and those who ate said the unfed were the lucky ones). The folks at Blue Moutain & Reading were quite adamant on making things clear that they were not the ones who arranged the lunch stop.
One of the more amusing anecdotes of the 1988 NRHS convention was that there was a trip offering a tour of the New York, Ontario & Western. A majority of the folks who signed up apparently didn't realize that most of the NYO&W was torn up when it was abandoned 31 years earlier. Expecting an actual tour by train, they were surprised to find that there was a bus awaiting them. When it was explained that it was going to be a bus tour along the sites of the NYO&W depots and right of way, they all jumped ship (or bus) instead.
Another story I heard was an indication of how bad the 1988 convention was going to be in advance. This was during the brief window that PRR #1361 was actually operating, and the Tri-State NRHS was saying that they were going to have #1361 there and haul an excursion over the former New York & Long Branch (a joint subsidiary of PRR and CNJ that operated PRR K4s) tracks that had become part of NJTransit. He said that piqued his interest and he was planning to attend specifically for that event. His travels took him through Altoona a month or two before the convention and he stopped in at the Railroader's Memorial Museum and mentioned the trip over the NY&LB at the NRHS Convention and was met by blank stares from all the crew there, followed by a "That's the first we've heard of this." He said at that moment he knew that the convention was going to be a E36 M3show and opted not to attend.
Three years after the 1988 NRHS convention, the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society brought #765 down to the 1991 NRHS convention in Huntington, West Virginia, joined by N&W #1218 and sister Van Sweringen Berkshire, Pere Marquette #1225. The #765 and #1225 hauled doubleheader trips, as well as this stunning side-by-side photo op at Hurricane, WV, with #765 towing a string of coal cars and #1225 hauling the passenger consist.
NKP #765 and PM #1225 get ready to haul an NRHS excursion to Hinton and back at Huntington Yard, while a CSX freight, still looking like Chessie to all the world, passes by in the background.
NKP #765 and PM #1225 hitting the crossovers at Milton, on their way to Hinton and back with convention attendees.
NKP #765 at Prince, West Virginia with one of the wildly successful New River Trains. From 1995-1988 and 1990-1993, #765 hauled these 300-mile round trips over former C&O rails through the New River Gorge 32 times, often with 30-35 passenger cars in tow. When #765 was taken out of service in 1993 for an extensive overhaul, Milwaukee Road #261 took over for 1994, and then CSX banned all steam-powered trips over their rails at the end of that year. The auxiliary tender, with the Chessie Safety Express lettering, was built from an L&N "Big Emma" tender, used behind C&O #614 during the 1980-1981 Chessie Safety Express excursions and then the ACE-3000 development testing, was used by NKP #765 during the 1985-1986 New River Train seasons, was sold to NS for use behind #1218, and these days is hooked behind N&W #611. Yeah, a lot of history there.
NKP #765 with a 30-car New River Train at Huntington, WV. Track speed was 55mph and #765 would do all of that.
During the 1989 season of the New River Train, CSX actually used a set of their own executive F-Units, an ex-Clinchfield FP7 and an ex-NC&StL F7B, for the New River Train. The #118 is shown passing through the railroad town of Thurmond, West Virginia with one of those trips. Yes, once upon a time, CSX allowed Reading T-1s, C&O J3a Greenbriers, Nickel Plate S-3 Berkshires, and even the D&H PA-1s in 1971 to travel their rails with a fall excursion. Hard to reconcile with today's CSX.
The CSX F-Units, wearing that interesting gray and blue livery, lead a New River Train under the old C&O searchlight signals at Stone Cliff, WV
This is not a publicity shot, this is an actual revenue run. In 1987 and 1988, CSX experimented with GM-contracted RoadRailer service from Detroit to Atlanta, and they split their A-B-B-A set of corporate F-units up into A-B sets to handle this service. The #118 rolls through an S-curve at Hazel Patch, Kentucky in April of 1988 with one of these trains. Ultimately, the F-units' 95mph gearing lowered their pulling power, and CSX was not fond of the RoadRailer concept, especially since they owned CSX Intermodal, and so the service was dropped. Ironic, since C&O was the railroad that pioneered RoadRailers.
This switcher is frequently seen as I travel between locations for work. High-arched cab roof, faired-in class lights, large number boards fore and aft, and Flexicoil trucks mean only one thing- SW1200 RS. Most likely a former CN unit.
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