Some questions on 765 at steamtown.

I'm not on the crew or anything but when I was riding the train I was cheking NKP 765's twitter. When someone had greesed the tracks in the Nayaug Tunnel and 765 stalled in the tunnel someone on the train tweeted "@NickelPlate765 Why am I going backwards" and 765 replied on twitter "Engineer/local crew are used to shorter trains, going back down and taking the hill again." I can't for the life of me find this conversation on Twitter so maybe after they found out the tracks were greased they took the tweet down? Anyway, this would make me assume that yes, Steamtown crew were operating 765 at railfest.

For operational road blocks 765 had a flue tube burst on the way to Steatown so luckily they came early and were able to replace it. I got to Scranton the day before Railfest and saw them working on her in the roundhouse and asked the mechanics what they were doing. Also, 765 had to cancel their trip(s) over the Tunkhannock Viaduct to binghamton becasue insurance to carry passengers over the Canadian Pacific track was outrageously high. Only 2 weeks later Norfolk Southern became the owner of the line and running that train would have been no problem.

Wow...lots of mis-information in the previous post.

Some years ago Steamtown (ST) had a policy which required that only ST crews would operate the locomotives. That policy was rescinded a long time ago. When the 765 ran at ST, NKP 765 crews ran the locomotive under the guidance of a qualified ST pilot engineer, same as when we run on NS. As to the OP's original question about operational roadblocks at ST, there were none.

The failed flue did not "burst." One flue had a small circumferential crack in it at the front flue sheet about 2" long. The engine steamed fine even after the flue failure. The only clue that something was wrong occurred during shut-down when we noticed a little water running out of the smoke box.

The greased rails at the tunnel did cause us to stall. We had to back up and take another run at it to get through the grease.  I know the details because I was running the 765 when it happened. It had nothing to do with the engine crew being "...used to shorter trains..." whatever that means. I've run 765 with much longer and heavier trains than we had at ST. The New River Trains we used to run filled out to 34 cars!

We did not cancel the Tunkhannock trips. Those were not even "our" trips. We were only supplying the locomotive and crew for this one, that's all. The Lackawanna historical organization was the sponsor of the trip and sold the tickets. The trip was not cancelled because of insurance. It was cancelled for a very simple reason...CP said, "No." 

If you are going to post info here about 765 and other steam locomotives at ST, you might want to do a little research first and get your facts correct.

Thanks for the info Rich! I was going off of speculation I had heard at Steamtown during railfest and going off of my own memory. I should have mentioned that and that's my bad. I do appreciate the correction.

Also, when I read that Tweet I was very confused by it. I know 765 can pull much more than what it had that day!

About the 765 trips over the viaduct that didn't happen because CP said NO, is that directly related to CP's new policy toward steam excursions which is NO with NO exceptions because boss Hunter Harrison hates steam and wants nothing to do with it on his railroad? Just like CSX's policy? I don't see them inviting you to run the New River train or trips out of Baltimore and Philly on the old B&O. They want nothing to do with railfan trips either. If NS had owned the ex-DL&W line at the time the trips with 765 would have happened. A shame, because now NS ended its contract with the FWRHS so a makeup excursion will be impossible now. There very well might be no more opportunities to ride the Viaduct line from Steamtown if Steamtown can't get permission from NS to run their trains on that line. The last public trips were before Harrison became CEO of CP. The previous CP CEO was steam friendly. The 3254 trips sold out quickly the few times they ran them. If Hunter becomes CEO of NS you can say bye bye 611 trips, too.