What are your favorite memories of doubleheaded steam?

V-a-g-u-e-l-y remember standing in grandfather's barnyard and watching a double-headed Southern freight in the valley below.  So long ago and far away...

I was never able to see a real steam double-header.  However, in 1952, my family and I did ride Santa Fe's Grand Canyon from Fullerton to Kansas City behind a bobtail F7, with a 4-8-4 double-heading it as far as Barstow.

As a kid growing up in the 50's I spent all my summers in the little coal mining town of Thomas, W Va.  My grand dad was an engineer for the Western Maryland RR and hauled coal daily from Thomas to Cumberland, Md.  Everyday I'd see long coal drags with 3 sets of double headed steam locomotives.  The Blackwater River ran along the tracks through Thomas and many a day we'd be catfishing while those big black steam snorting, smoke belching monsters roared just 20' from us.  God that was 67 yrs ago and it seemed like yesterday.  Yea I remember double headed steam.

YEAR:  1991

LOCATION:  Chattanooga, TN

OCCASION:  25th Anniversary of the Southern/Norfolk Southern Steam Program (1966-1991)

TRIPLE HEADER RUNBY:  SR 4501, N&W Class J 611, and N&W Class A 1218 in that order

IMPRESSION: Glorious rolling thunder: The ground shook underneath our feet! 

The event of my lifetime which I will never forget!

SORRY - no photos, but PENTREX did a video of the event including the runby.

I was at Cass in WV one time.  The wife and I were taking the shorter ride so we got to watch the first train leave.  It took off with two Shays pushing the train.  All that steam and side winder action is sight to behold unlike any other.

A few years ago Strasburg did a few runbys on a photo freight with 89 and 475 in about a 1.5 feet of snow. That's the only one I saw (besides the one three weeks ago). I'll have to see if I can find the photos. 

1) UP 844 & 3985 doubleheaded from Cheyenne, WY to Sacramento, CA for the 1999 Railfair event.

2) SP 4449 and UP 844 doubleheaded from Portland, OR to Tacoma, WA plus two round trips from Tacoma to Evert, then return back to Portland, in 2007.

Northern Pacific 4-6-6-4 led by a 4-8-4 in Montana in August of 1954.  I took a color (8mm) moving picture of that. Two B&LE 2-10-4 locomotives pushing an ore train headed by one 2-10-4 north of Pittsburgh in about 1950. The latter of these was a rather common occurrence as my aunt and uncle's house was located about 600 +/- feet from the B&LE tracks.

No doubt that my favorite doubleheader was the two Advisory Mechanical Committee Berkshires between Huntington and Hinton, WV, during the 1991 NRHS Convention.  The last day of the Convention, the 765 and 1225 double-headed a very long passenger train.  The 1225 had developed a firebox crack on the way down so when it was time to come back from Hinton, the 1225 was down to way less than 90 psi and the 765 was in the lead.  The 765 pulled the whole thing, including the lame 1225, and about 30 passenger cars - unassisted - at 60 mph or more.  After the Montgomery water stop and the arrival of darkness, I sat on top of the 765's coal boards (on a metal bench which has since been eliminated in the interest of Risk Management and Safety) with my head sticking up higher that the top of the cab.  What an unforgettable show from the cat bird's seat, watching the signals change as the wind rushed past my head and looking back over the top of a second steamer at a long passenger train snaking through the curves of the route- all of the way back to Huntington.  It still gives me goose bumps!

September 1967...My Dad took the family on our second mainline steam excursion. The trip ran between Elizabeth and Green Pond Junction, NJ over the Central Railroad of New Jersey and was sponsored by Ross Rowland's High Iron Company. Power was provided by two former Canadian Pacific G5 4-6-2s, the 1238 and 1286. Those G5s were great locomotives and there was some really fast running that day.

Bob

The double header out of Chama on the C&TS:

Also running 1630 at IRM with our poor little Tuskeegee R.R. Baldwin 2-6-2 on the point.  I could have easily just pushed her along, but instead I held back a little making her do most of the work eastbound.  Such stack talk from such a tiny little locomotive...

Rusty

Mine will always be the 844/4449 trip to Everett, WA. I followed a few of the trips made between Portland and Everett. Here, I got a photo of the train passing through Centralia, WA:

I was lucky enough to get a quick photo of that train tearing through the Sounder depot at Auburn, WA at Amtrak speed.  There were other people on the platform that Saturday, some train fans but mostly others who had no clue why seemingly random people were standing there with cameras. One came up as I was dashing for my SUV and said she'd though there was going to be a flash mob.

A close second, though, would be 4449 and SP&S 700 along the old SP&S to Wishram, WA for the NRHS convention in 2005:

I was in Lima when 1225 came in and met up with 765 to go to the convention in '91. I was in the yards with 765 and 587 in '93 when 611 brought the independence limited into town, the next day saw the doubleheader going to Chicago for the convention. 

1.    Illini RR Club fan trip with Burlington 2-10-4 #6315 and 4-8-4 #5632 "coupled", Chicago-Galesburg, Sept. 6, 1959. 70 steam locomotives in storage in the yard and roundhouse, plus spiffed up 4-6-0 #637 and 4-6-4 #3007 displayed for photographers. O1a 2-8-2 #4978, now on display in Mendota, IL, was in the "house", having been returned from service on the Colorado & Southern, 6 months earlier.

2. Ok, not a steam doubleheader, but DM&IR 2-10-2 #514 and an SD9, fighting up the grade to Procter Yard, on another Illini fantrip, Sept. 1962. A year earlier, 2-8-8-4 #224 took the same train up the 2%, unassisted !

3. Dick Jensen's ex-GTW 4-6-2 #5629 and an SW diesel, leaving Chicago's Grand Central Station. The '29 tried to handle the big train solo, but stalled on the steep, sharply curving approach to the St. Charles Air Line bridge over the Chicago R.   A B&OCT SW was added as a pusher, violent crashing drawbars and slack running in and out resulted, as the two engineers tried to coordinate. Great drama, 1962.

4. Osceola, WI:  NP 4-6-0 #328 , Soo Line 4-6-2 #2719 and Soo Line 2-8-2  #1003, triple headed, 1998.

Yep, all as good as you might imagine !!

Good evening Mike, thanks for posting this video and the great pictures.

I missed the age of steam by 15 years so I have no memories of double headed steam.

It had to be a sight and sound to behold !!!!!

Thanks again for the video, my wife thought it was beautiful.

Steamtown doubled the 3254 & 2318 past our Tobyhanna station at 50mph a few years back when both were under steam. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera that day but standing about 15 feet awaywas alasting memory.

MarkStrittmatter posted:

Good evening Mike, thanks for posting this video and the great pictures.

I missed the age of steam by 15 years so I have no memories of double headed steam.

It had to be a sight and sound to behold !!!!!

Thanks again for the video, my wife thought it was beautiful.

Me and you both Mark. Except I missed the age of steam by roughly 40 years. 

Thanks Mark and tell your wife thank you! 

While living in Würzburg, Germany in the winter of 1967-68 I remember double headed Deutsche Bundesbahn 2-10-0's pulling log trains, sometimes with a 3rd one pushing on the rear.  Pretty spectacular in the cold weather - and no, I never took a photo.

During the ATSF 3751 2002 Canyon Rails trip, on the return to Williams, AZ from the Grand Canyon, 2 of the GCRY locomotives were added to the train for a final run-by and on into Williams.

Of course its hard to beat 2 shays pushing your train up Cass.

Hands down, chasing UP 844 and UP 3985 through the Feather River Canyon. Only way it could have been better is if they were ascending the canyon eastbound instead of drifting downhill westbound. Runner up was chasing SP 2472 and SP 4449 in 1992 during the NRHS convention in San Jose.