Southern 630 Knoxville Employee Trips

[PGupton]

I'm new here, but I thought I'd share my stuff from the 630 runs this weekend in Knoxville.

They ran the excursions from City Yard-Hunt Rd in Alcoa, which is actually a couple miles shorter than the run in November. I was only able to chase 2 runs, the 2pm on Saturday and the noon run on Sunday.

We started off Saturday with the awesome shot of the bridge crossing the Tennessee River. For those who haven't seen, I also shot the 154 on the last steam trip to Alcoa in November here.


The 630 crossed the trestle right before a rain storm set in for all of 5min, but the clouds made for an interesting shot none the less. They put on a bit less of a show than the 154 crew!


After this "main" shot we got a couple others, my favorite personally being 630 moving through the rain in Vestal.


This wrapped up what I deem relevant for the day, as we got a bit turned around on a highway and ended up winging it without getting the shots I desired.

Today went very nicely; easy chasing, sunshine, and fewer people out and about.

The same as the day before, we started out at the TN River trestle. Afterwards we got it through Tipton Station, which proved to be a personal favorite for the day.


From there we got it at a trestle, got a couple shots of the great lash up on the back and headed home. We hope to chase it to Chattanooga tomorrow if we can make it out there in time (CNOTP would have worked perfect for me!)

After the runs both days I chatted with the crew. They said the drivers are doing good, although there isn't as huge a difference in the newly converted driver than they had hoped. They run fine on stuff such as the Alcoa runs, but on long distance runs where they are at a consistent speed for an extended period of time they tend to get warmer. Also, 4501 will be getting the oil treatment on its drivers, 630 is just a test bed for the stuff they will do to 4501 throughout its restoration.



Attached are some better shots from the weekend

[Ponce de Leon]

Nice shots, Peyton! The "comin' at you" shot in the rain is fantastic--best of the group. And---welcome to JREB.

[E.M. Bell]

That rain shot is killer Peyton! We drove through that storm to get out to a place we had picked, and I figured it would still be pouring there, but we never got a drop.. The storm did give us some great "Storm Light" at the river in the afternoon.