The first video from the Southern 630 excursions this weekend in Roanoke, VA.
I will be adding many more videos through out the week as time allows.
Ralph
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW9VfN6R1nA[/youtube]
Too bad they can’t disguise the diesels under something. Do you think 630 needs the help? Sounded like they were working hard in video #1.
Jon,
I have a video coming up where the diesels disappear in the steam 
I’m not sure if the 630 needs the help or if they do it to make it easier on the crew. She’s hand fired.
They ran some shorter runs in TN. & NC. last year without diesels.
Ralph
I should have saved this for last. I didn’t have my tripod.
But this is cool 
Ralph
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZOzW7cX4Wk[/youtube]
Saturday we had perfect weather for railfanning. Got up to about 70 and hardly a cloud in the sky. We managed to catch it twice on it’s way to Radford and back to Roanoke in the morning, which are Ralph’s first 2 videos. That afternoon We caught it 3 times on it’s run north to Lynchburg and back, thanks to Micheal, his laptop and Google Earth. As son as I figure out how to get my videos off the video camera and into the computer, I’ll post some from the same places as Ralph, but different angles.
Sunday the weather turned nasty. Cold, wet and miserable, so we hung around the yard and got some great shots of 630 encased in steam. We decided to bug out around lunch time and we both headed in in opposite directions for home.
Despite the sunday weather and my loosing a tire on the way home, it was a great weekend, and I want to thank Ralph for inviting me along and a big thanks to Micheal for his navigation. .
Excellent!
Here’s some pix:
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/Roanoke%20VA/630001_zpsbc204690.jpg)
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/Roanoke%20VA/630002_zpseb05c661.jpg)
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/Roanoke%20VA/630003_zps606d9d7d.jpg)
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/Roanoke%20VA/630004_zps9190c1e8.jpg)
Here’s another at the tunnel. Got a bit shaky there at the beginning.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYEU1GOu8z0[/youtube]
Sunday morning in Roanoke Yard…cold, wet, miserable…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGqCCB1LATs[/youtube]
Awesome videos guys.
Unfortunately all this does is increase my desire for May to get here when the NKP 765 returns to Pennsylvania… this time running excursions around the Altoona area. I managed to snag tickets for my family for the Saturday morning excursion for employees.
Every single employee ticket is gone, as are all the public excursions out of Lewistown. Five days of steam trains on my home railroad… its gonna be great! Tied together with my son is due date the tail end of April.
Despite my wife’s condition, she’s already given me permission to chase Labor Day Weekend. Anyone coming here?
Here’s another video from Saturday.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o4aiFnuKCY[/youtube]
JD,
I plan on being there Memorial Day weekend
Ralph
J.D. Gallaway said:
Awesome videos guys.
Unfortunately all this does is increase my desire for May to get here when the NKP 765 returns to Pennsylvania… this time running excursions around the Altoona area. I managed to snag tickets for my family for the Saturday morning excursion for employees.
Every single employee ticket is gone, as are all the public excursions out of Lewistown. Five days of steam trains on my home railroad… its gonna be great! Tied together with my son is due date the tail end of April.
Despite my wife’s condition, she’s already given me permission to chase Labor Day Weekend. Anyone coming here?
The good lord willin and the crik don’t rise, I plan on joining Ralph up there…
It was St. Patrick’s Day and we had the luck of the Irish.
It was raining as we arrived Downtown, so we headed to a trackside underpass to stay dry.
As soon as we got there, we saw Southern 630 backing through Downtown, on the way to the Wye to turn the train
Ralph
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRZ4VD3Cpz4[/youtube]
After they turned the train, Southern 630 backs up to enter the track at the O. Winston Link Museum.
While this is going on, a long, slow Intermodal passes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIM-CdQqYHs[youtube]
Great views of the Southern 630 in this video. As she slowly pulls out, the engineer gives us a couple of “toots” and a wave.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaYpZ4cNd3U[/youtube]
Here’s one for the diesel brigade. A Norfolk Southern Intermodal emerging from the tunnel at Montgomery.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDeQ4kcq168[/youtube]
I put some of my still photos to a real railroad song…Johnny Cash’s “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-smYcch93SE[/youtube]
Still another video of the Southern 630. This time passing through Bedford, VA.
It was very windy. With the overhead location, I hoped to get a nice coal exhaust shot.
Unfortunately, the diesels were doing all the work here.
Ralph
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPlSLM-0El8[/youtube]
Ralph, I know the disappointment of the diesels doing the work. On the assault of horseshoe curve last year, the diesels were in heavy throttle as they passed my spot at the PT241 detector. Turns out that as they approached the curve itself Wick, who was aboard the engine, had the engineer throttle off the diesels and let the 765 pull the curve on its own.
As I made my way from trackside to the road, I could hear the roar of the 765’s exhaust from over a mile away (direct distance) as she assaulted the east slope of the Allegheny divide. MAN, I can NOT wait till May!