NS STEAM PROGRAM IN N.C.

Great info..you can also see ticket info/$$$ here....

http://www.tvrail.com/pages/21st-Century-Steam

Are you going? I am

My wife and I are going. I WISH the 611 would be returned to service.

Rob

to bad my orders got pushed back or i would be in N.C by then at least i should be able to go to the photo shoot for N.S.

The first trip...

yep, I'll be there.  18 years since steam has been to central North Carolina, and 8 years since we've had any steam going more than 3-4 miles at a time.  Should be lots of fun!

I just hope the trips sell out.  I was distributing flyers for the trip at a train show in Winston-Salem yesterday, and most people didn't even know about the trips.  Whole bunch taken though, so hopefully it will translate into ticket sales.  You cannot count on the railfans to make these kind of trips successful.  It takes the general public with mom, dad, or the grandparents taking the kids to sell out the trains.  You've now gone through two 10-year gaps of kids not being able to witness steam, and a lot of the built-in audience that made the previous program a success have moved on over the years.  It's going to be hard to rebuild that, because now you have to start over from scratch again.

I wish them the best.  Everyone who is chasing, be safe out there!  I've heard from a friend who is there that the Atlanta trips were a zoo, and with the public trips, there will probably be more of a crowd than that here.  Irresponsible railfans will kill this faster than anything else, so everyone needs to be on their best behaviour if you want them to come back.

Kevin

Well great kevin cant wait to go maybe we can eat lunch together if you can so we can discuss trains

I'll be there at some point over the weekend, though family commitments will determine which day.  Things are still very much up in the air at this point.  If you see a green Olds Bravada, say hi.

Kevin

The train as pictured above was sitting in Spencer this morning.

post pictures please

Hey Guys,

I was working outside around the house Tuesday afternoon and could have sworn I heard a steam whistle. I live about a mile or so from the NS mainline in Concord, NC and we hear the diesel horns all the time. Seems that I missed an opportunity to do a little railfanning! 

I've already reserved my ticket for the Saturday 12:15 excusion and am really looking forward to the ride. Hope to meet some of you there!

Rich that would have been 630 coming thru concord at the time.

I lost him in concord due to traffic but I'm going to post some pictures from my chase.

Great photos....looks like it was a great day.

Great pics, Sean! Thanks for posting them.

Sean:

THANKS for the great photos! 

Kay and I have tickets for the Sunday trip. We will be staying at the Comfort Suites in Salisbury Saturday evening. Plan to stop by and see Steve at the hobby shop!

I expect Jim Wrinn will also be there!

I have ridden behind ALL of the steamers fielded during the magnificient SR and NS steam programs (1974-1994), including the incomparable J, and the 1218 and 765.

Yet the smaller engines such as  the 4501, 630, 722 and 750 really were the early STARS of the Southern Railway steam program!

I even got to "babysit" the 611 one summer night in 1980, and got to throw some coal in the firebox (banked fire) and operate the injector! Very cool! 

Having run 722 during the summer of 1984, I have great respect for the venerable consolidations, such as 630!  

I don't think Wrinn will be there this weekend.  Probably out in Iowa at the NRHS Convention.  He'll be there the next weekend for the "big trips" though.

Kevin

I actually meant the weekend of June 16-17 - my bad! 

That's actually the weekend I was referring to.  NRHS Iowa is that time, so Trains probably has him on location.  He'll be there the following weekend for the freight and the ferry move to Roanoke however.

I'm going to try to talk my wife into getting tickets as a father day gift for this weekend.

Since Wesley is under 2 he can ride for free.The trip is only 1hr and half but it would be nice to have a chance to get some mainline steam action. My last trip was in 94 on what was later known as 611 farwell tour. So getting back out on the highiron would be a thrill.

I didn't see any photo run bye's in the plan does anyone know if they are going to run them?

I wouldn't expect any runbys.  Not enough time even if they wanted to.  You're talking close to 30 minutes to pull off a runby and the schedule is pretty tight as is.  Best plan is to hit one of the crossings west of Salisbury on one of the other trips.  Once they clear the wye, they get up to speed pretty quickly.

The chase line was surprisingly thin this past weekend, but I expect many more people to show up for the public trips.

Well I got my reservation for the 3:30pm Saturday trip so I'll have to get my pictures of the train coming back to Spencer from the 12:00 run.

No photo runs are planned for any of the NS Employee Appreciation Trips. This includes both the 630 and the 765 trips.

Sean:

There will be plenty of photo ops on the Saturday and Sunday trips.