CSX westbound intermodal I007 I saw last night in Northeast Ohio lead by CSX Chessie System Heritage Unit ES44AH #1973 & CSX YN3b ES44AH #3019 trailing 2nd. This now makes the 2nd CSX Heritage I have seen in person.
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When I saw that the Chessie was coming though, I knew you would catch it for us Tom!
Thanks for sharing with the forum!
Nice! Greatly appreciate the post! 
@VistaDomeScott posted:When I saw that the Chessie was coming though, I knew you would catch it for us Tom!
Thanks for sharing with the forum!
Thank You Scott!!!
Nice catch Tom!
Since CSX is copying NS now, how about a new steam program? Kind of like the Chessie Steam Special and Safety Express? Maybe have 2716 and 614 pull trains. Have steam on the Fall Colors Express in WV. CPKC is running the 2816 again. That leaves CN, CSX, NS, and BNSF as the four with no official steam program right now.
@Robert K posted:Since CSX is copying NS now, how about a new steam program? Kind of like the Chessie Steam Special and Safety Express? Maybe have 2716 and 614 pull trains. Have steam on the Fall Colors Express in WV. CPKC is running the 2816 again. That leaves CN, CSX, NS, and BNSF as the four with no official steam program right now.
Keep dreaming! What with all the liability issues, PSR, crew shortages, and PTC requirements, It ain't going to happen.
I missed out on a lot of mainline steam and diesel excursions and freight only routes in the 1980's that will never happen again. I did though rode two 765 excursions in PA in May 2013 and Aug 2015, and 611 in Manassas, VA June 4, 2016 and at Strasburg Sept 2019, and rode a few Steamtown and BM&R and RBMN excursions. I knew NS would eventually get sick of hosting steam excursions so I begged my late mom to take us on those NS excursions and she did even with her breathing issues. She passed June 14, 2022 in the hospital because her lungs were weak. We had tickets to ride behind #2102 from Reading to Jim Thorpe and we wound up riding it on Oct 1, 2022 with my mom's man friend who lived with us since early 1994. I lost my father March 8, 1986.
@Robert K posted:Since CSX is copying NS now, how about a new steam program? Kind of like the Chessie Steam Special and Safety Express? Maybe have 2716 and 614 pull trains. Have steam on the Fall Colors Express in WV. CPKC is running the 2816 again. That leaves CN, CSX, NS, and BNSF as the four with no official steam program right now.
Robert,
I hear ya, and I'm with ya, but ...
What can we, your fellow OGR forumites, do about it?
How can we plant the seeds?
Why do I ask?
Having seen and closely followed many, many steam restoration efforts, some of which blossomed into full-blown programs, since the late 1970's every one that finally and successfully got a locomotive on the rails and excursion trains rolling -- every last one of them -- literally took a miracle for it to happen.
Where is that miracle going to come from here? (It's a question I'm asking quite sincerely, and with all due respect.)
Mike
@Wrawroacx posted:CSX westbound intermodal I007 I saw last night in Northeast Ohio lead by CSX Chessie System Heritage Unit ES44AH #1973 & CSX YN3b ES44AH #3019 trailing 2nd. This now makes the 2nd CSX Heritage I have seen in person.
Fantastic !
people can say what they want about railroads, good bad and ugly. But truthfully, railroads are the only ones who embrace their past.
@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:Robert,
I hear ya, and I'm with ya, but ...
What can we, your fellow OGR forumites, do about it?
How can we plant the seeds?
Why do I ask?
Having seen and closely followed many, many steam restoration efforts, some of which blossomed into full-blown programs, since the late 1970's every one that finally and successfully got a locomotive on the rails and excursion trains rolling -- every last one of them -- literally took a miracle for it to happen.
Where is that miracle going to come from here? (It's a question I'm asking quite sincerely, and with all due respect.)
Mike
Mike,
Probably the most important factor involved in answering your question is, todays big class one railroads are no longer run by "railroaders". Everything now is related to lowering the operating ratio and increasing stock price. In fact, as a result of PSR, the customer satisfaction factor is so far down on the pole, that virtually ALL the customers are complaining and contacting the Surface Transportation Board about "poor service".
And with derailments, and cutting costs and psr, the last thing class 1's want to do are steam excursions or tours. UP and the new CPKC are exceptions.
