Rich, I am envious of your experience with 765. I followed with great interest during it's latest rebuild. I was at Michigan State from 63 to 68 when 765's sister was a static display rotting away behind a chain link fence. I was there just a couple of years too early for the team that formed to put it back into service. I believe it took 12 years, but they did it.
Growing up in Philly, the Pennsy only ran electrics (GG-1s) on the mainlines around the city, therefore, I have no recollection of seeing a steam engine in revenue service. My uncle was a mechanical engineer at Baldwin and showed me the parts he designed on #60,000 that still resides at the Franklin Institute Science Museum. It was a one-of-a-kind experiment that not only was a three-cylinder engine, but had a water-tube boiler. When my uncle Sam took me as a 6 year-old to see locomotives being constructed at Baldwin, the only steam engines on the line were being built for export. All domestic production was diesel. As a child, I didn't have any steam engines on my layout. They were passé. I wanted to have what was modern and up to date. Now I have a mix of both since I've developed a keen interest in steam engine technology.
I am 72, and by the time NHIVRR got that Nacionale de Mexico 4-8-4, I was already too old to do the hard physical labor required for large machine reconditioning. That train, as they say, has left the station.
