In line with the other thread about what railroad you grew up near, I'd like to ask what was the first steam you ever saw live.
In my case it was the Black River and Western 2-8-0 #60 when it ran on the LIRR in 1967.
I was 10 years old. I don't remember where we intercepted it. It was a one-shot deal as my dad was not a "chaser".
The next time was NKP 765, somewhere north of Harmon, NY, on the Golden Spike Centennial Limited in 1969.
That was also a one-shot deal.
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My first was the American Freedom Train, headed by the Reading T1, in 1976. It made one heck of an impression on an eight year old me. 
Been a steam fan ever since.
Andy
The C.K. Holliday of the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad, circa 1972.
Atlantic & Yadkin Ry Ten Wheeler with morning passenger consist southbound to Greensboro.
I probably saw a N&W steamer in 1932 when at 6 months old Mom took me to Ohio to visit Grandparents. Hard to remember
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My very first memorable sighting of a steam locomotive, was at the Central Railroad of New Jersey, Cranford Yard office, in about 1945. My dad had taken me down to get a close look at the big 0-8-0 yard switcher, and the Reading Crusader raced past, westbound, on on the four track main line, north of the Yard Office building. I remember sitting in the passenger side open window, of our 1940 Ford coup, and I'll never forget that speeding, streamlined Reading locomotive! I was permanently HOOKED on steam.
My first steam engine was a M&StL small engine. Probably a 4-6-2 or so that was switching cars. My mom and I were walking to a little neighborhood grocery store. We were really close to it and I'll never forget that she said to close my eyes or I might get cinders in them. It was a fire breathing, exciting monster to a small boy.
Art
I was visiting my aunt who lived near 65th and Baltimore ave in Philadelphia. Near her home was a small yard full of steam engines waiting for assignment I suppose. This was about 1955 and being nine years old I was excised just to see them. Can't tell you what kind they were but they were steam engines.
Some were also stored there I guess waiting to be scrapped also. It was a great time.
I can remember taking my dad's lunch to him down to the yard when I was about 8 or 9. (1950) He was firing the yard engine. A 0-6-0 or something similar. I also remember the CN cop putting the run on me until I told him what I was doing. Both the cop & my dad thought it was pretty funny, Can't say I did!!
I did make a few trips on the main line with him . I had trouble staying in the head end brakeman's seat it was so rough. I did get to throw a few shovels of coal into the firebox.(no stoker) Can't say I had fun!! I was terrified, especially when the firebox door opened.... Ok I'm a wimp!
It would be the 4449 on the AFT in 1976...she was huge! and loud! and I remember it like it was yesterday. I have been a steam junkie ever since.
Frisco 1522 in the mid 80's. In a moment it was there and gone. The kid I was didn't think a brief moment was worth the wait in weeds and hot sun.
Nathan
The thing that I miss about real steam engines was laying in bed at night as a kid hearing that super cool whistle. It made me dream about where the train was going and wished I was on it. Diesel horns are great but definitely not the same effect.
Art
The Chessie steam special in 1976 or 1977.
The steam engine that made the biggest impression on me was N&W 1218. I never liked the N&W, but seeing that engine run changed my mind in a hurry.
Jeff C
That would be one of Steamtown's Canadian engines in Bellows Falls, VT in the mid 70's, not including their vast collection they had stored around the turntable at the time.
Mine was at the Strasburg RR as a kid. I was about 6 years old (1966) and I thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw until like Andy I saw the Freedom train roll thru.
One thing I've always remembered about Strasburg was how rural the area was back then, the Choo Choo Barn was the only building on its site, nothing but farms around it, now it's in a shopping center and there are housing developments all over the area.
Jerry
Jerry
I grew up about a mile from the Lackawanna's Gladstone branch - I could see the trains passing from the top of our driveway. That view is completely blocked by trees today.
Passenger service was the old "Edison" MU Cars, but the tri-weekly local freight was handled by a WWI-era 2-8-0. If I heard the whistle, I would run as fast as I could to where I could see it pass. Fortunately, one of the days it operated was Saturday. I would pack a PB&J sandwich and a thermos of milk and bike down to Gladstone. The freight would arrive around 10 AM and I could help push the engine around on the "Armstrong" turntable.
One March day in 1953 I heard a diesel horn. Biking to Gladstone, I found a GP7 powered work train crew removing the turntable.
In the fifties, when I was just a few years old, (4?) my father and I were invited by my Uncle Charley to the B&OCT's Robie Street roundhouse where he worked to see the last steam engine assigned there. It was a Sunday, and we were dressed up from coming from church, and I remember being told not to touch anything because everything is dirty, and I'll ruin my nice clothes.
But I digress, the locomotive was a 2-8-0, or 0-8-0, and was hissing quietly in a stall. It did work all night, but we missed it in action.
I remember liking it a lot better than the diesels, as it could sit here quietly while the diesels were chanting away. I didn't like the noise. I was a weird child, I know. Pictures were taken of me posing on the pilot steps, I'll have them scanned someday.
Other attempts to see steam were on the GTW, as they ran 4-8-4s on passenger service into Chicago until 1960. Dad was no railfan, and never thought to get a train schedule, but a distant whistle would call us track-side, but the result was always smoke behind a cut of cars on an elevated right of way.
One day in an industrial/commercial part of the city, we were stopped by a flagman at a shallow angle crossing, were a steamer crossed the street and coupled on to boxcars at a factory. The resulting jolt, shook burning cinders into the ashpan. This image was burned into my memory for all time.
The 0-6-0 saddle tankers of the old Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal in 1960, earning a living in revenue service in Greenpoint Brooklyn (the last steam in New York City) switching cars onto a float barge.
Rio Grande Narrow Gauge in Alamosa, Colorado in 1957.
Had to be Steamtown when it was still in Bellows Falls,Vt.. seeing that Big Boy for the first time! Can't remember if the excursion train was steam powered, but i think it was. Also saw the 4449 leading the AFT--
I think the first running steam engine I saw had to be one of the narrow gauge engines at Edaville Railway, in Carver, Ma. My parents took me there when I was a kid.
Well, if you want to include park locomotives, then Idlewild's 4-4-0 would have been my first, as well. It was one of my favorite rides there. I was sad when I learned that they got rid of it in favor of a non-steam C.P. Huntington.
The Strasburg #31 was the next steamer I saw after the Freedom Train, and would be the first full-sized one I rode behind.
Andy
That would have been NKP 759, not 765. The 759, operated by the High Iron Company back in that era, ran a lot of trips in the late 60's and early 70's.
NKP 765 was taken out of service in 1958. It remained out of service until she first turned a wheel in her 2nd career in excursion service on September 1, 1979.
First steam engine for me was at age 10 and was No 89 a 2-8-0 Mogul built by the Canadian Locomotive Works(Used on the Grand Trunk RR) which was operating excursions at the original Steamtown in Bellows Falls, VT for many years, it is now at Strasburg and I got to ride behind her again 47 years later, who'd a thought Steam wouldn't last.
For me, the first operating steam I remember included any number of smaller switchers serving in the Youngstown, Ohio, area, which at the time (late 1940s) was a major steel-making center. I enjoyed seeing anything and everything related to the mills, and especially the railroads serving the mills in various capacities.
But the first and most memorable "big steam" I saw would have to be the Canadian Pacific Royal Hudsons in passenger service on lines that paralleled the highway during our frequent summer trips to Ontario Province in Canada. Those were beautiful locomotives, and I loved watching them as they invariably outpaced our car.
I've also enjoyed several cab rides aboard steam locomotives over the years, but am still waiting for Rich to invite me aboard the 765. 
Strasburg Railroad #89 in 1972 with my grandfather who worked a short stint on the Pennsylvania railroad and then went to Coyne Electrical College in Chicago Illinois.
Around 1951 on the Long Island Railroad on a trip from NYC to visit an uncle "way out" in Northport. Changed for steam at Jamaica. It was probably a 4-6-0, but memories are a little fuzzy since I was only 5 at the time.
The trip home was fantastic because there was some sort of delay and we had to sit at the station for a few hours. I got to watch local steam passing by, again probably 4-6-0s. Everyone else was upset at the delay, but it was one of the best and most memorable days in my life.
Jim
My dad fired Consolidations and Mikados for the Southern, but I never saw him at
work. I vaguely remember seeing steam as we drove over a bridge over Southern
tracks that passed under old U.S. 60 east of Louisville, Ky. Later, we lived on
"Depot Lane" in a tiny town closer to Louisville, and there, about 5 or 6 years old,
I saw steam every day, and thought nothing of it. It was just part of the scenery.
My first ride behind steam was when my dad's brakeman buddy was switching coal
hoppers for the country store at the end of that lane, and his buddy let my brother
and I up on the caboose platform to ride back and forth in the switching moves.
I did not again ride behind steam until over ten years later when I rode the D&RGW
narrow guage from Durango to Silverton, in 1955.
Probably at Frontier Town in Lake George, New York in the mid-50s. I suspect it was a restored narrow-gauge steamer.......I'll have to check my family's old home movies.
Peter
Correction: My first ride behind the narrow gauge was in 1956, when we got to Durango. In 1955 we didn't get down into SW Colorado. My first train ride was
behind the "real" Rio Grande narrow gauge, my first airplane flight, no kidding, was
in a 1928 Ford Trimotor over the Lake Erie Islands, and my first auto ride was in
my dad's 1938 Packard 110 Touring Coupe, so I think I have a pretty good list of
firsts.
An N&W K2a.
New York Central Mohawk 3000. I look about 10 in a Polaroid picture. It was at a time when Lionel was making and I was running postwar trains. Photo was taken at the New York State Fair grounds.
First working steam engine was Strasburg.
1955, I was 4 years old and saw a PRR steamer pulling an eastbound freight through Steubenville, Ohio.
The first steam locomotives I remember were the NYC Niagaras or Mohawks steaming South out of Suspension Bridge. And the CN 0-6-0s delivering cuts of cars to the Erie. I still remember the smells and noises!
PRR steam hauling coal drags on its Northern Division up the long grade from Watkins Glen, NY to Starkey, NY in the 1950's. Usually one loco on the front and two pushers at the rear. Pushers would cut off just pass the Starkey station. Most vivid memories -- the stack talk of the locos and the inevitable grass fires that ensued after they passed during the dry season.
Poppyl
Around 1972 - a tourist train in South Dakota - in the Black Hills -- there was steam locomotive train that ran -- I guess it was used in some movies also - a John Wayne movie was one of them, I believe. I was pretty young but I remember the passenger car and the ride - the car was just bench seats inside. I am too young to seen steam locomotives used in real work situations.
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