Really chuffed: First full-size British steam locomotive for 50 years fires up

The Evening Standard (U.K.) ^ | August 1, 2008

[sionnsar]

Thanks to Professional Engineer for the ping.

Geezer Geek ping.

This is a very low-volume ping list (typically days to weeks between pings).
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[Professional Engineer]

I don't want to be flying down the RR tracks at 100 MPH behind a steam engine.

What's the big deal? Mass is mass. Steam, diesel, or electric propulsion is irrelevant.

[Arrowhead1952]

I should have said “the RR tracks the Hill County Flier” was running on at the time. It just recently got the ribbon rail, since that track will be part of the commuter rail coming into Austin. Back then, it had the old “bolt together” sections that made the clickety clack sound.

[Mercia]

Spent a few years at primary school in Ealham. Love everthing about the area. Brilliant.

Damn sight better than the gloomy midlands :(

[snugs]

I lived in Walmer near Deal well lower Walmer to be correct for about 7 years from age 6 left Walmer in 1972.

[mountainlion]

The Georgetown Colorado runs in the tourist season. It has had some trouble and I do not know their status. Pikes peak has a steam engine on the cog railway that run occasionally. The I think it is Darango to Chama NM steam railway runs mostly year around.

[Joya]

http://www.durangotrain.com/

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4197162

[mountainlion]

One of the few things I like about PBS is some of the old films and historical stuff about the mountains and rail roads. I can't remember which steam train goes to Chamma Nm. but I have seen the show a couple of times. I remember as a kid I could watch the steam engines going by.

[Joya]

Here’s what I found

http://www.chamasteam.com

Looks like good times.

[mountainlion]

Here’s what I found

http://www.chamasteam.com

Combres and Toltec is what I was trying to remember. I should go somewhere this summer.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Southern Pacific #4449

Built in 1941 as a 4-8-4 GS-4 'Northern' type locomotive, she is 110' long, 10' wide and 16' tall. With locomotive and tender weighing 433 tons and a boiler pressure of 300 psi, her eight 80" diameter drivers and unique firebox truck booster can apply 5,500 horsepower to the rails and exceed 100 mph. Retired to Oaks Park in 1958 for display only, in 1974 she was completely restored specifically to pull the 1976 Bicentennial Freedom Train throughout the United States to the delight of over 30 million people.

The only remaining operable 'streamlined' steam locomotive of the Art Deco era, this grand Lady of the High Iron pulled Southern Pacific 'Daylight' coaches from Los Angeles to San Francisco over the scenic Coast Route and then on to Portland until 1955. She is arguably one of the most beautiful locomotives ever built -- and kept that way by the all-volunteer Friends of the SP 4449."

Here is a photo from 2006:

I last saw this train doing a turnaround near Salem Oregon around 1995. Steam locomotives were just about gone when I was a kid back in the '60s, and it is wonderful to see this old iron in action from time to time.

[Stoat]

Wow....just beautiful, thank you so much for posting.

[Stoat]

Love it mate, really good pics.

I'm delighted that you've found it to be worthwhile  :-)

Brings me back to my childhood riding on the nearby Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

A beautiful railway, obviously run and maintained with love. 

I wouldn’t mind a few more of these beauts running up and down the East Coast mainline.

Yes indeed, and in the USA as well, although I would imagine that the enviro-fascists would become utterly unglued if they were to become commonplace again despite the fact that they use home-grown coal instead of Islamo Oil.

Perfection of smallish nuclear reactors would really be the ticket, in that they would be magnificently clean, emitting only steam which I can't imagine anyone objecting to. 

I would buy a nuclear-powered car in a heartbeat   :-)

[Stoat]

I’d be really chuffed, too. What a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.

Indeed....just gorgeous and made even more appealing by the fact that it was funded almost entirely by private, un-coerced donations and built entirely in Great Britain by British labor from the ground up.

A stellar achievement all 'round. 

[Clinging Bitterly]

4449 is written about a lot on the railfan sites. I'm not quite a railfan, but I do love to see them when they are out and about. I used to have a quarter that was pressed by this locomotive back in '76 when it came through Eugene in it's red, white, and blue "Freedom Train" colors.

I like the orange colors better - reminds me of the time when Eugene was a major Southern Pacific yard. There are some early photos showing it painted all black, but that's way before my time. Indeed, the Southern Pacific passenger service had gone to Diesel about the same time I was born, and then came Amtrak. We have taken Amtrak here & there, but I think I'd love to experience the old Daylight as it was in it's heyday.

[Mercia]

nuclear powered cars...hmmm, you’re onto something there!

Good reading, thanks.

[uglybiker]

An article I posted a couple months ago:

Absolutely chuffed! What happened when 30 grown men gave up 18 years to build a steam train
30th May 2008

[uglybiker]

If you like trains, you’ll love Chama. Not a whole lot else in that small town. After you’re through doing the train bit, Taos is just an hour away.

[mountainlion]

I grew up in Niwot outside of Boulder. There was more for me to do in Niwot than in Boulder.

[Parley Baer]

The SP 4449 was one of the stars in the movie “Tough Guys” with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Some of the train scenes were filmed on the Eagle Mountain Railroad in the Southern California desert.