Two locomotives debuting this weekend
Two steam locomotives are making their debut runs after overhaul this Independence Day weekend.
At 11:00am Eastern time, ex-Southern Railway 2-8-0 154 will make its inaugural run to Marbledale on the Three Rivers Rambler, the first train hauled by a Southern Railway steam locomotive since 1998.
Built as East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia 466 in 1890, no. 154 was still on Southern’s roster in 1952 (leased to the Smoky Mountain Railroad), and it was donated to the City of Knoxville, TN, in 1953. In 1989 the City donated no. 154 to the Old Smoky Railway Museum. OSRM transferred title to the locomotive to the Gulf and Ohio Railways in August 2008.
(No. 154 will power free excursions at 2:00pm and 3:30pm on Saturday, and TRR’s regular excursion at 2:00pm and 5:00pm on Independence Day.)
At 9:00am Pacific time, Sierra Railroad 4-6-0 no. 3 will be the star of Railtown 1897′s weekend festivities. Universally recognized from its many movie and television appearances, no. 3 was built in 1891 as Prescott & Arizona Central Railway #3 “Wm. N. Kelley”, coming to the Sierra in 1897. No. 3 has a new boiler after being out of service for over a decade.
Details for the weekend can be found here:
On Saturday and Sunday, the Sierra #3 will depart at 9:30, 11:45, 12:30, 2:00, 3:30 and 5:00. The Sierra #3 will be pulling the restored first class observation car, and the open-air mountain observation car.
Congratulations to everyone who played a role in returning these two locomotives to active service.
CSX: “No steam on its own wheels” is official policy
This Cumberland Times-News article, a follow-up to this article, is interesting:
Bob Sullivan contradicted statements made two days earlier by Jason Johnson, event promoter, and said it’s been the policy of CSX not to allow steam locomotives on its tracks because of increased risk and liability.
. . .
“The decision on the steam locomotive is consistent with CSX’s policy of not permitting the movement of antique rail equipment over our lines,” Sullivan said in an e-mail to the Times-News. “CSX’s experience is that movements of antique rail equipment on current infrastructure create at least four serious business and safety concerns.”
Those concerns, Sullivan said, include drawing a crowd close to working rail lines, disrupting essential service to area businesses, impairing the track and equipment which are not designed for current configurations, and creating “serious and potentially expensive insurance concerns.”
. . .
However, “the company has concluded that the most responsible and fair approach is to decline all requests for steam locomotive movements on their own wheels,” Sullivan said.
What I find interesting is that CSX is willing to confirm that it does, in fact, have a ‘no steam on its own wheels under any circumstances’ policy. Since the Bayou Canot accident, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 261 operated over CSX in 1994 (Chicago, IL – Hinton, WV and return), 1995 (Chicago – Buffalo, NY), and 1996 (Buffalo – Chicago), and Wilmington & Western 0-6-0 58 and 4-4-0 98′s made several moves to the Wilmington Amtrak station for Transportation Day as late as 2002, as shown here. I am aware of instances where steam movement proposals were answered with insurance requirements or AAR interchange rules that made the move impractical, but there appeared to be at least the theoretical possibility of moving a steam locomotive over CSX on its own wheels.
This statement appears to rule out that theoretical possibility.
Around the Web . . .