NW 1218 at Front Royal

[TonytheTiger]

I've been digging in my old stash of stuff and found this . . . .

NW 1218 carefully negotiating the wye at Front Royal, Virginia, so that it can return to Alexandria with an excursion train.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=173113

That day in May of 1988 was pretty gloomy, so I took this color slide and made it B&W some time ago.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=131589

I don't think you can tell the era of the photo just by looking at it.

Rob Kitchen
Harrisburg, PA

[E.M. Bell]

memories, ah, the memories.....

As long as certain modern elements are not present, it IS hard to tell...excellent work..

[TonytheTiger]

By the way, I took that photo with a 50mm lens (in other words, I was close!).  My 7 year old daughter and myself were standing alongside the track with all of the other train nuts.  She was in awe of the gigantic driving wheels, the whining generator, the hissing steam, and the shear size of the locomotive.

Today she is expecting her second child (my second grandbaby).  Maybe I'll take the grandkids trackside sometime in the future . . . .

Rob Kitchen
Harrisburg, PA

[Batman]

the only give away as to it being a modern photo is all the power lines in the background.   git rid of those and it could be 1958.

[Enginecrew]

Nice shot Rob; many thanks for posting it! Incidentally, isn't it remarkable that in years gone by they actually ran those engines with a crew of only two rather than the army of riders when in excursion service.   

[kbarnett]

In excursion days NS had a crew of 5 on road crews 1 night watchman who usually was not on the train, 2 engineeers and 2 firemen. Since most trips were more than 12 hours their was probably only 2 steam crew members in the cab. The rest were crew from the district that were acting as pilots and the local RFE, the rest in the cab was usually volunteers or railfans. in the picture shown, I see Bob  Saxtan at the throttle, Dwight Browning on the left hand seatbox, and looks like Jack Taylor the 2 engineer getting himself some water from the cooler. The others in the cab are probably the RFE(in coveralls)praying 1218 does'nt hit the ground backing through the wye and engineer/Pilot looking back out of the other gangway. Also NS had a 5 man limit on cabriders and crew while on the road. But that rule was some times broken.

[Enginecrew]

In excursion days NS had a crew of 5 on road crews 1 night watchman who usually was not on the train, 2 engineeers and 2 firemen...
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I knew why they did what they did; it was just a joke with us normal crews that they couldn't run an engine without a cab full of people.