Happy Wednesday, everyone! If any of you remember the original Mickey Mouse Club, you know that Wednesday is "Anything can happen" day. Here is the clip from the first season:
While the Railroad world isn't quite so unpredictable, we do sometimes get surprised on what does and does not go on around us. Dig into your RR photos so you can share some of the "anything can happen" moments you have encountered.
Here are some of mine:
Not too unusual, but whenever a steam locomotive shows up on the Steamtown turntable, people do act surprised. Nearly every day, people ask why it is "never" used, as though it should be a continuing operation like a casino revolving door. It is used when the engines need to go in or out of a roundhouse.
A bit surprising to me was catching this F3 on the move this past Saturday. The past few weeks, her operation has been talked about more than anything. She was moving, but it was the track mobile moving it.
After some switching, the two F3s were reunited. Some runs through the yard would challenge both units. Sometimes with one shut down and pushing or pulling the other, and some moves with them MUed to see how they respond to each other. When the Fs arrived in Scranton in 2009, they did not MU, so it was one unit or the other that would make a run. In 2013, compressor and generator problems sidelined 663 from running.
While concentrating on the Fs moving about, I found them holding at the diamond for Baldwin no. 26 to head through the yard with her own train.
ON Monday, July 31, 663 ran solo on the Scranton Limited trains. She seemed to have no difficulty. The 2 F3s will be the mainline power for 2017 when all of the bugs are worked out with each of them, as well as how they interact with each other. The F7 B-unit will be the next addition. This might happen before the year is over.
To add to the "anything can happen" idea, the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society recently scored 3 cars from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Blue train. Two are in Scranton. One is in Cumberland MD waiting to be shipped north.
These are 2 sleepers from the train. They will be on display at Steamtown's Railfest this Labor Day weekend.
