The Spencer Event--May 29, 2014

[Ponce de Leon]

I'm sure the railroading world will suffer a deluge of images from the "Streamliners at Spencer" event. I visited the first day (Thursday, May 29th), and had fairly decent luck in getting some images. I enjoyed seeing many of my friends, plus I met some new ones. It was hot as the devil, and my buddy Tom Sink and I were pretty much toast by 3 PM---since we're both kind of old. We headed for home, so I didn't get to see every unit on the turntable. But---I had fun, which is the important thing.

Here's a little Flickr album of some of my shots if anyone is interested:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/91191585@N07/sets/72157644874504276/

[Matt L]

Thanks for grabbing some shots of the Erie E8A- she is the only Erie E unit left.

[Ponce de Leon]

Thanks for grabbing some shots of the Erie E8A- she is the only Erie E unit left.

A friend of mine looked at the Erie E8 and asked, "....did they ever wear that kind of paint scheme?" Of course they did, and the 833 looks stunning. I never saw an Erie unit in person, but I know they were fairly quickly painted into the DL&W scheme after the formation of E-L. I thought she was one of the prettier units at Spencer.

Of course I was partial to the Southern units---but the B&O F brought back some memories, and also those gorgeous Pennsy E8s. I used to photograph them in Louisville and Cincinnati back in the early to mid '60s. I could easily envision them backing into Louisville Union Station with the "South Wind" to Miami.

[Bill Richardson]

   I don't know anything about the Spencer Event. Didn't know it existed until I just found your post.  I would like to have been there to see all those engines of that type.  I bet that was fantastic!  I would have made 100 photos.   Glad you put some up to look at.  It would be nice to see even one in good condition, in a good setting, and make pictures.

Bill

[chipallen16]

It was great to meet you there, Ron!

-Chip

[PGupton]

I went there on Saturday and in the interest of sparing everyone from another recap thread...

Here are my photos on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/peytongupton/sets/72157644553106859/

I'll be honest and say I took a literal ton of photos.. there never WASN'T something to snap a picture of! I earnestly feel that I didn't get to take everything in at the event in my single day there.. which speaks volumes of how fun the whole thing was!

I'll be uploading and deleting photos on Flickr as I discover what my "better" and "worse" shots are...

I never felt that the event was overly crowded--a likely benefit of having it spread over 4 days. My only 2 bad experiences with other railfans were one where a guy standing a complete 10ft back from the photo line around the turntable came up and chewed me out for walking into his photo twice (I'm on the shorter side and crouch when I walk by photo lines so I don't know what angle he was going for..) and despite my apology he still walked away fuming. Oh well, can't please everyone.
Second occurrence was during the afternoon Parade when a fellow kept asking me to step back more and more because I was "blocking" a whole group of people... Credit for him to doing it politely but it irked me because he never asked the group of people standing next to me almost on the tracks that I was having to shoot around myself. Maybe the heat was just getting to me.

All in all a fantastic experience though!

[Matt L]

A friend of mine looked at the Erie E8 and asked, "....did they ever wear that kind of paint scheme?" Of course they did, and the 833 looks stunning. I never saw an Erie unit in person, but I know they were fairly quickly painted into the DL&W scheme after the formation of E-L. I thought she was one of the prettier units at Spencer.

Of course I was partial to the Southern units---but the B&O F brought back some memories, and also those gorgeous Pennsy E8s. I used to photograph them in Louisville and Cincinnati back in the early to mid '60s. I could easily envision them backing into Louisville Union Station with the "South Wind" to Miami.

Were those Bennett Levin's Pennsy E8s? If so, I saw them a few years back- excellent paint job on them.

You should also tell your friend that NS's Erie heritage unit is based on the Erie RR passenger scheme. It is a pity that no other Erie Es or Fs survive.  

[Ponce de Leon]

It was great to meet you there, Ron!

-Chip

Likewise, Chip. It was fun, was it not?