Want to race?
The above only opened on my phone.
Here is another link
In previous years the race was with a tiger moth.
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Wow Bill, that’s amazing! Four parallel tracks for how long of a distance?
I loved the drone shots near the end, showing all four trains together. What an experience it must have been for all those passengers.
Thanks for posting that!
Cheers,
Cliff
Cliff,
Steamfest has been a big thing for the past 35+ years. Locomotives from around the country and as far away as Scotland have participated.
My last Steamfest outing was in the 90s and the train excursions were from Maitland heading North in to the rural areas of New South Wales.
Maitland (in the Hunter wine region) is sort of the last town of any size that regular commuter trains run from Newcastle. Newcastle, located on the east coast, is best known for its coal and steel exports.
When I lived in Newcastle you could catch a “red rattler” to Maitland in about 35 minutes. For me it was the fastest way to get to a grocery store as I lived across the road from the station. Due to the large number of coal trains heading to the port 24 hours a day, there are long sections of quadruple track to avoid delays.
Interestingly, the races are generally against a vintage Tiger Moth, and they do reach some decent speeds. Reportedly the aircraft has only won the race once.
I was quite impressed that someone had the confidence to race a Garratt locomotive in the video. I suspect the passengers in the trailing carriages had a very good chance of experiencing proper sooty clothing during the race.
The race with 4 locomotives would indeed be fun to see and I’m now wishing I lived closer.
Thanks for the further story, Bill. An amazing event, maybe the only thing of its kind (with four tracks) in the world.
When the 1:1 PRR T-1 replica is finished, steam locomotive racing folks may have a real ballast scorcher to contend with. I have read in Classic Trains that the original T-1 locomotive engineers liked to make up time on the passenger schedule over a 100 mile stretch of tangent track in Ohio. Trains would regularly exceed 120 miles per hour, sometimes exceeding 130 miles per hour. The company that made the poppet valves for the locomotives found out this was the reason their valves were burning out, but they kept it quiet and just tried to improve their valves.
Now that better materials are available for such valves, I wonder what speeds could be sustainable. We may see someday.
Regards, David Meashey
P.S. LNER A4s beware; the Mallard’s record could be up for grabs!
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