Midweek Photos 8/25/2021

Me again.  In late July, I met up with friends in Maine, to take some Summer photos of the 2-foot steam locomotives.  Photo freights and passenger trains were staged at different locations along the Wiscasset, Waterville, & Farmington Railway, in Alna, ME. Locomotive no. 7 is from the Bridgton & Saco River Railroad.

Passengers were not allowed on this newly relocated Boston & Maine Railroad box pony style bridge.  It will be dedicated in 2022, but we were able to shoot staged images of no. 7 like this.  

Another of the photo angles we took advantage of was along this bridge.

Later in the day, at the Alna Center station, two trains would meet.  Heading north is Sandy River & Rangely Lakes no. 6, passing Monson Railroad no. 3.

At Alna, where the engine shop is, and a roundhouse is being built, "the five" locomotives were posed alongside one another.  3, 6 and 7 were under steam.  Announced that day is the beginning of the restoration of nos. 4 and 8.  One day, all five will be steaming in Maine again.  More Maine steam in my next post.

The reason I used the phrase in my last post, "the five" in quotes is that many people refer to them as the final five steam locomotives in Maine.  That is a bit of a shortcut to reality.  They are the final five that came from the original Maine 2-foot railroads, went to Edaville RR in Massachusetts in 1947, and returned to Portland in the 1990s.  They have gone to other locations in the state, and only once in a while are all five gathered in Alna.  3 and 7 have run in Portland on the Maine Narrow Gauge RR.  But, there are other 2-foot steam engines in Maine. This Henschel tank engine was built in Germany, and still runs at the Railway Village in Boothbay, ME

The train runs clockwise on a loop around the mid-1800s village, making stops at the Freeport station and the Thorndike station.  This is still real railroading, using anthracite to fire the steam engine.  The train uses an historic Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington Railway coach, and a home-made ope air coach.

Number 6 stops for coal and water every third trip around the loop.  In the distance, you can see the French "Merci" car on display.  After World War II ended, the government of France sent railroad cars full of French items to the individual US states as a thank you to Americans who helped to liberate the country.  Do you know where your state's "Merci" car is?

Number 6 pulls her train through the covered bridge. There are many scenic spots along this railroad, and each are in walking distance.  

That does it for me.  I hope that everyone is having a good Summer.  

Yesterday was the final day of a nine-day trip on Amtrak in coach. The highlight of the trip was taking 24 hours in Houston to see the Big Boy on display and heading east for Beaumont, Texas.

The locomotive and passenger consist were displayed at the Amtrak station in downtown Houston, A trio of Houston police officers on horseback were briefly part of the day's circus.

Ed Dickens and other steam team members spoke to the crowd from the back of the (divided) consist, taking a few (screened, some prepared and some not) questions from the general public.

The next morning, the train spent an hour backing out of the station to the Houston freight main.

Lots of railfans and members of the general public were out; a few middle-aged men, a kid and his grandfather with their iPads, and a mother who took time off work and her kids out of daycare to hang out at the crossing down the street from their apartment.

The locomotive headed east at about 9:30, passing under a cloudbow that stayed up for a few hours.

Bonus shot of the Houston light rail train passing over the reflection pool on "Main Street" and kicking up a bow wave after a 30-minute squall.

This morning I was investigating a new hiking trail that just happens to begin adjacent to BNSF tracks.   While there, an approaching train sounded its horn.  Could I be so lucky?  No, the horn was pleasant sounding, not BNSF's disappointingly flat affair.  The UP tracks are not far, but out of sight.  But suddenly the track I was standing near began to sing and three BNSF engines with no train and a broken knuckle coupler on the trailing unit came flying by at full track speed.  The broken coupler had something written on it in pink paint, but I only nabbed the approaching photo.  It reminds me of a book I had as a child, "You've lost, you've lost your red Caboose!"

-Nathan