Midweek Photos 9/4/2013

Part 2: A new railroad to help out Steamtown in celebrating railroads and their impact on the economy is the North Shore, based in Northumberland, PA on the former Lackawanna & Bloomsburg RR.  This SW1500 sits in the turntable plaza waiting for her partner.

Norfolk Southern RR sent 3 newly painted locomotives from Altoona along with their Exhibit Car.

Steamtown's trackmobile hauls NorthShore caboose into the turntable area.  

In order to make room for display locomotives, this PRR boxcar was taken off display.

Berlin Mills 2-4-2 no 7 comes out for a few days of sunshine.

As Delaware-Lackawanna RR's RS3 no 4068 leaves the turntable for display, we see work still progressing on the roof of the 1865 section of the Locomotive shop.

D-L also lent one of their nicer looking units, C420 no 414, in her authentic Lehigh Valley "yellow jacket" markings. 

664 gets her turn on the table, getting positioned to face properly for the caboose trains.  Saturday and Sunday photos are coming up soon.

A remnant of the old B&O wye in Gaithersburg, MD. Used to turn steam helpers. Now the entire wye site has been regraded and developed but this short section of track remains. 

Miscellaneous photos taken at IRM's 60th anniversary celebration over the Labor Day weekend. Amongst items appearing were #63 "Leviathan" steam locomotive, #126 Lehigh Valley Coal tank locomotive, UP Centennial #6936, South Shore "Little Joe" #803 (operating for the first time in 25 years), and CB&Q 4-6-4 #3007. 

At IRM, the #18 UP gas turbine was displayed in a good aspect for photos; it is usually boxed in by other equipment:

Nice to see the 18 getting some "breathing room."

Rusty

drifting down to Butte

Strasburg Railroad's Lancaster & Oxford Motor Car #10 ready for departure.

An Amtrak track maintenance train on a siding in Paradise, Pa. on the Philly to Harrisburg mainline.

The new trolley line in Aruba.

A few photos from a recent vistt to Elkhart, IN.

Great photos everyone.

Dang, that Leviathan looks cool!  I hope to see it some day.  Last weekend I went to the huge Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion, in Rollag MN (over by Fargo.)  This was my third year, and I'm already looking forward to next year!  They had over 50 steam tractors there again this year.  COOL STUFF!   If you love steam, this is THE place to be!  They also have a coal powered 0-6-0 that pulls a train around a ~2 mile loop around the grounds.  My wife won't go--she said I come home covered in soot, dust, and wheat chaff and she doesn't want to get that dirty.  So, I took my dad.  He had a blast!  First shot, the train approaches the station.  Second shot, 5 teams of draft horses running a threshing rig.  Third shot, the caboose rolling by.

And OK, a fourth shot.  I have to put one of up the tractors because they are so cool!   Each night at Rollag they have a sparks show.  They use their steam powered excavators (HUGE beasts!) and a few of the steam tractors.  They get a good hot fire going, dump in bags of saw dust, and put a heavy load on the engine while running the flue wide open.  It's spectacular!  The engines scream, smoke and sparks shoot 50 feet into the black sky, and it's a deafening spectacle!  Once you see it, you'll keep coming back.

Caught the Grafton & Upton RR shifting cars around the Hopedale, MA yard this evening.  Bringing in loaded cars of building materials and pulling out the empties before heading back north to the N. Grafton yard.  Click on any photo to enlarge it...

Speaking of steam traction engines, here is a Port Huron tandem compound belted to a sawmill during the 48th Antique Engine & Tractor Show at Jay County Fairgrounds, Portland, IN, August 21-25

Last Friday I went down to Strasburg early to see the freight train. I was told to only expect one car...

 Waiting for the train outside the yard

Heading out for the freight

Apparently they got a few more cars than expected. The stationmaster, who was standing there with me for a while, said it was near #90's max tonnage!

Passing through Cherry Hill

Arriving in Strasburg Yard

89 and 475 were there too! 89 was getting steam up for the weekend, but I am not sure what was going on with 475. I did not see anyone bother with her except for getting her out and putting her away

She did have steam up after a while, and they ran her back and forth in the yard

and how about one more shot of #90

I have more photos of this day, along with photos from 425 in Jim Thorpe on Labor day, but that will have to wait until next time

Great showing as always, guys!

Here are a few of my photos from Saturday of RailFest at Steamtown.

The Reading Blue Mountain & Northern RR graciously lent their 4-6-2 no 425 to the RailFest for the weekend.  Only recently did she come back under steam.  The morning sun greeted her and visitors to the Fest near the parking lot of Steamtown.

In addition to 425 and a short freight train, RBMN also provided an SD40-2. She posed at the visitor center alongside Central RR of New Jersey crane no. 5.

Same track, different angle.  Further down from 3058 sits REading FP7s 903 and 902, along with Reading 4-8-4 no 2124.

The civility in the Civil War-themed weekend came from a number of ladies dressed in 1860s attire along with the Delaney-DeLacy division of Civil War generals. 

All kinds of eras crossed paths that weekend, from the Civil War to turn of the century, to Norfolk Southern's current repainted and rebuilt diesels.

The color guard assembles before the opening ceremony begins.

Steamtown's superintendent Kip Hagen welcomes those gathered to RailFest before sending the visitors to their trains.

One of the favorite attractions any day of the year, Union Pacific's Big Boy.  The cab was opened for the occasion.

12:30, the excursion train is off to Moscow, PA.  Passing the old passenger main tracks on the right of the photo is Nickel Plate 514, six coaches  and Lehigh Valley business car 353.

The 1908 train station is now a hotel, which is why the trains depart from the railroad yard now.  

Later in the day, I caught the Scranton Limited yard train in nearly the same area.  Central of New Jersey 1554 looked fantastic with 2 suburban day coaches in tow.

Entertainment in the turntable area in the form of Ray Owen.

An interior view of the North Shore Office caboose.  No doubt this helps bring some business to the complex of short lines in central PA.

With open access of the locomotive shop, one could view the current condition of restoration projects such as Boston & Maine 3713.  A little display table also shows some of the pieces that will be used in the work.

And Steamtown's little 0-6-0 no 26. So close to operating, and still not quite there. 

That does it for me.  Next week's Midweek photos will show some of Sunday at RailFest and possibly other scenes.  

Nice shots of Steamtown, Tim.  It's sure a unique place.