What was the first steam you ever saw in person?

4449 leading the American Freedom Train in 1975 here in Madison Wi. Sorry to say that I don't really remember it, I was going on three years old. I was able to see it again at a service stop in Wisconsin Dells a couple of years ago, it was returning from the Train Festival in Michigan.

Mine was the OC #6325 in Deninson Ohio in Railroad Days on August 1st through the 4th of 2004.

NG:  Silverton.

 

Standard:  AFT 610 in Houston TX.

 

 

UP 8444 in about 1967 at the Salt Lake UP depot. Dad used to take me down there every time it came through when I was a kid. Used to Follow it to Ogden. Foaming back before it was fashionable.. Every time I see it (Still go see it every time it comes close) I remember I was half as tall as them big drivers when I first saw it. I also get a little emotional now that the old man is gone. Like seeing an old family friend.

Some little steamers putzing around Pittsburgh..a bunch of nondescript types I can vaguely remember now. But then there was the morning it all changed!  We were headed west on W.Carson St. after exiting the Liberty Tubes at about 9AM, when my folks and I encountered the Big Jay (J1) freighter headed west on the Panhandle. My Dad paced the huge machine for quite a ways. Brush was not what it is now, so you could really sink your young teeth into this massive beast. The exhaust sounded like someone shaking big rocks around in a wooden box, and I can still see the oily green glint of sunlight, off the main and side  rods as she moved smartly along. And what was this??? A chromate yellow cab side window...bullet shaped no less !  The Penn had lots more of other classes, but a better steamer?  NEVER !

It was 1969 and I was 9 years old. My world of railroading was an HO layout built on an unused ping pong table. The family had gone from our home in Willowick, Ohio to the Great Lakes Mall in Mentor, Ohio for something. Coming home Dad drove over the RR crossing on State Rt. 306. A large crowd was assembled at the crossing. He asked what was going on. They told him the Golden Spike Limited was coming and it was being pulled by a steam locomotive. Learning when it was due, we went home to drop off Mom and my 4 year old sister. Dad took Mom's 35mm camera and we went to the Worden Road crossing in Wickliffe, Ohio. This was the closest crossing to home. There we found another crowd waiting. I don't remember exactly how long we waited, but I don't think it was long. Finally NKP 759 with blue trim and a matching blue train thundered past. I was awe struck. A steam engine was a lot more interesting than the diesels i saw regularly. Dad got a couple of pictures, that I have today. Leaving there we learned the train was going to be parked downtown at Cleveland Union Terminal and you could go there to see it. I wanted to go downtown  to see it again. Dad said no, we were overdue to get to my grandmothers. Oh well, a nine years old doesn't have much say. But I am happy he did take me up to the tracks to see it. Maybe that's why NKP Berks are my favorite steam. It was my first.

 

Steve

I was too young to see most of the steam engines in operation.

I believe I have seen 4 in operation.....

 

The Disneyland Steam engine in the late 1970s

The Disneyworld Steam engine in Orlando a few years later

The Norfolk & Western 611 J when it came through our small Virginia town in 1992

The Western Maryland steamer that we rode behind in 2012

Wilmington & Western # 92 back in 1971. I was five years old and just plain thrilled!

NKP 759 came through my back yard in the late afternoon of May 18, 1969 runnning back east with the Golden Spike Centennial Limited on the Nickel Plate from St. Louis that day to Lima. I have the slide my Grandfather took that day showing me standing in our back yard watching the 759 run through - the moment in time preserved - when I first saw a steam locomotive running. I talked my mom into taking me and my best freind out of school and up to Lima the next morning to see the 759 getting ready to head on east - in the shadow of the Lima Locomotive Works where she was built only 25 years before. It seems like only yesterday!

First steam engine was the Brillion Pioneer (0-4-0T)at the RR Museum at Green Bay, which I was also able to get a cab ride...much less my first train ride.   1965.

Then other Museum engines, and mainline engines such as 4960; 5629; 4501; 8444; 4070; etc.

2101 performing her duties as the Chessie Steam Special in 1978 in my hometown of New Martinsville, WV. 

 

 

 

The gentleman on the steps circled is my great-grandfather who worked for the B&O as a fireman.  The little guy next to the tracks also circled is me at 6 years old.

Mine was the N&W J 611 sometime around the early 1980's while it was on an excursion going through St. Louis.  It was like a huge fire breathing monster....no doubt, it was alive!!  I was in total awe....

 

Alan

Mine first steam engine i ever seen was the cass railroad steam engines. I was 10 years old. 

In the late 1940's, at the age of 7 or 8, my family would ride the LIRR from Woodside, Queens, to one of the beaches-either Rockaway or Long Beach.  I can't remember the exact locos, but they were either Atlantics or 4-6-0's.

We would also occasionally ride from Woodside to Mineola, where we had relatives.

N&W 1218 and J611..

Second steamer was a PRR K4 stopped at the RR station at Steubenville Ohio. We were traveling on market street  and as we crossed the RR tracks, I saw her sitting there.  I asked (begged) my dad to stop so I could watch, but he didn't.  I remember looking out the back window as we were going up the hill and I heard the whistle and watched from afar, the big K4 crossed market street and the passenger cars followed in rapid succession.  What a sight!  About 1955-56?

The CB&Q Golden anniversary Hudson.

Fall 1955/spring 1956, during morning recess at grade school, saw a steam powered military train consisting of flatcars with half tracks and tanks with a trailing caboose on the West bound EJ&E main track. Had to be a special military train, never saw this again, the "J" at this time were using the orange and green Baldwin center-cabs.

It's a good question, but I don't think I can answer it precisely.  I was born in 1948 in a Pennyslvania coal town served by the PRR, RDG and Lehigh Valley.  But my parents left when I was only a year old, and moved to Bloomsburg, PA, which had PRR and DL&W trackage. 

 

I know I watched trains there, but I still wasn't old enough to really recall much about them.  Then in 1952, we moved to a town in central PA that was on the PRR 4-track main line.  And there were plenty of trains to watch there, I can tell you! 

 

Steam and early diesel were roaring through town every twenty minutes or so.  But the only two steam types I clearly recall are a couple of 4-8-2 Mountain types and a gigantic Decapod.

 

Oh, to return to those times with a good camera and the knowledge I have now!

 

That is NOT a "Hudson". That is CB&Q O5b Northern number 5632.

I'm jealous of all you guys with the in-service Pennsy steam memories. 

 

I was born on August 29, 1957 and the "Farewell to Steam" event on the NY&LB was held on October 20, with the last revenue run on November 4.  

 

On November 12, 1957 the K4 Era on the Pennsy officially ended when the 5351 ran from Pemberton to Camden, NJ.

 

As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much."

 

Yes, that sure was a great trip with K4sa #612. I even took some color photos while on that trip. Great memories.

Disney World Railroad 4-4-0

Growing up in Chicago in the '30s on, whenever we passed a railroad.

 

Ron M

Don't know what kind of locomotive but it had to be D&H the tracks are a foot ball field from the front door where I live. Al

Grand Trunk 4070 in Cleveland.  Spent many weekends with my father chasing this engine thru the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

I would guess, since I was a baby at the time, that it was an ACL P5A pacific type locomotive going through the middle of town in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in the mid 1930's.  The main line of the ACL ran right through the downtown area with streets on either side of the tracks.  A big passenger station was on the South end of town.  My mother told me that I reacted favorably to the trains while she pushed me in a baby carriage.

 

 

Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At a county fair.  A Case steam tractor.  Late 60's I was still in high school.  Picture from the internet.

Mine would be the Freedom Train in 1976 In Scranton Pa.  My grandfather and great uncle were railroad men for the Erie -Lackawanna .  I grew up with tails of steam engines .  My great uncle had his garden laid out  with displays of steam engine cabs and a little out building he made up like a caboose.  The engine cab had everything in it , gauges, fire doors , pipes , handles and the like.  He would show us how to operate the engine with it. 

 

 

In the summer of 1954, my grandfather took me on my first train ride when I was 5 years old, from Rexburg, ID to Rigby, about a 15 mile trip and I remember it vividly.  The train was Union Pacific's Yellowstone Express, a seasonal day train from West Yellowstone, Montana, to Pocatello, Idaho.  It was pulled by a 4-6-2 light Pacific with a Vandy coal tender, a baggage/express car and 3 passenger coaches, all in the Union Pacific armour yellow with red stripes and gray roofs.

 

 

I grew up around the 3 15" gauge steamers at the McCormick Railroad Park where my grandfather worked.  Fine locomotives they are.  But my 1st 1:1 steamer was #4449 in full Daylight colors in the early 80s.  My dad is 6'-6" and the tallest person I knew at the time.  The wheels were taller then him!

Baldwin 6000 Franklin Institute!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_60000

But Disney World was the first live steam I ever saw when I was 10. and then strasburg when I was 12.

I thought the original poster was inquiring about real LIVE steam!

I read the title and posted  

I was about to say the Heber Creeper in Heber Valley, Utah, for my sixth birthday in 1978, but you all have jogged my memory well tonight.  I'm pretty sure I saw the Freedom Train in Salt Lake City, which would have been maybe 4 years old, and definitely one of my earliest memories.  Anyone know when it passed through Utah?

I'll bet 1975.

 

For me it was the Dollywood Express at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It's a great train ride lead by a 2-8-2 mikado. In fact, if not for this train, I probably wouldn't be so interested in trains, because I first saw it back around 2000 when I was just 3 years old, and I still ride it every time I go. So I'm very grateful for this train, as it sparked my love of trains.

October 1966: The occasion was a mainline excursion or "steam safari" operated by Mr. Ross Rowland's High Iron Company over the CNJ between Jersey City and Jim Thorpe. Power for the day was former Canadian Pacific G5 1278, relettered and renumbered as the Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern 127. CP G5s 1278, 1238 and 1286 powered a number of excursions in the Northeast during this period and they were extremely reliable locomotives. They could really move and leave chasers in the dust. In fact, there were still a lot of steam veterans around when these trips were running and, according to the guys who were there and ran them, the G5s were judged very favorably against local legends such as CNJ's own Baldwin Pacifics and the Pennsy K4s.

 

The images below were taken by Mr. Rich Oppenheim during a runby in the Lehigh Gorge on the eastbound return leg to Jersey City. My father and I were in that trackside crowd somewhere.

 

Bob

 

I dont know rhe exact date but it woulld have been around late 75 or sometime in 76 of course. I remember seeing it (in salt lake)

'Twas many and may a year ago, when the world was young and the skies were blue.  My parents took me, all of 5 or 6 years old, down to the yards in Boulder, CO, where I climbed/was lifted, into the cab of the local switch engine.  Scared me, but I did it.

 

ChipR