Grand Canyon Railway steam engine PICS & VID

As some of you may know, I work on the Grand Canyon Railway. Last fall, they retired the steam engines for a multitude of reasons (cost of diesel, maintenance costs, etc), but promised they would continue to look into alternative fuels to keep the steamers running. Last month, they decided to run waste vegetable oil instead of diesel. This weekend, they are running a series of runs during the day to test it out and see how it works. It only goes 4 miles north of town, then back, so its not going all the way to the Canyon right now. I rode on it twice today, the second train was a "Photography Run" where they let everyone off the train to take pictures and video.

This particular engine, 4960, was built in 1923 and is a Mikado-style 2-8-2 steam engine (for those of you who are interested in this sort of thing). It ran flawless all day today, and will be running again tomorrow. I am scheduled to work on the Grand Canyon train tomorrow, but I am going to bring my video camera and try to jump on the "Photography" run again tomorrow night to try and get some better video.

I am absolutely in love with these things, they are soooo cool. I felt like a kid looking at Santa today, looking at the engine, riding behind it, hearing the noises, watching it roll by. If you've never seen a steam engine, please, try to find one near you and check it out.

Here's some of the pictures I took today.







My niece and stepsister riding the train.


Our locomotive shop


My friend Katie and I riding the train out for the photo op.


And like I said, here's the video I took tonight. This is with my stepmom's digital camera, so I apologize if its not "video quality", I'm going to take care of that tomorrow with my actual video camera.
YouTube - Grand Canyon Railway Steam Engine flyby - September 5, 2009

And while I was uploading, I found this video on Youtube that I think is awesome, a very nice tribute to the steamers.
YouTube - Grand Canyon Railway Steam Program Tribute

Smell like chicken?

.

There ain't nothing as cool as a steam locomotive. 2-8-2 means 2 front, 8 drive, and 2 rear wheels, right?

RTicUL8 said:

Smell like chicken?

.

Click to expand...

Believe it or not, you couldn't really smell the veggie oil. I think the smell was there, but it wasn't strong enough for you to say "Hey, french fries." I was kinda surprised by that, actually.

T3hk1w1 said:

There ain't nothing as cool as a steam locomotive. 2-8-2 means 2 front, 8 drive, and 2 rear wheels, right?

Click to expand...

Correct.

Good to see that you guys found something that would work. Hope you don't mind me asking what the diesel was being used for since it's a steam engine?

Instead of burning coal or wood, they burn the diesel or veggie oil.

bjoehandley said:

Hope you don't mind me asking what the diesel was being used for since it's a steam engine?

Click to expand...

Heating water to steam. :dunce:

And yes, steam power FTW. That is some cool stuff.

T3hk1w1 said:

There ain't nothing as cool as a steam locomotive. 2-8-2 means 2 front, 8 drive, and 2 rear wheels, right?

Click to expand...

Right.

old_man said:

Instead of burning coal or wood, they burn the diesel or veggie oil.

Click to expand...

ECKSJAY said:

Heating water to steam. :dunce:

And yes, steam power FTW. That is some cool stuff.

Click to expand...

That's what I was figuring, just wanted to make sure

Why not coal? Its cheap.

I'm a train nut as well and work in the industry, I rebuild diesel-electric locomotive engine and air brake components.

The town I live in was Norfolk and Westerns headquarters(now Norfolk Southern) and they built their own steam engines right here including the famous "611" and "1218" which are still on display at the transportation museum. The "475" at Strasburg PA was built in Roanoke Shops as well.

If your gonna run diesel or veggie oil get a cool old diesel like this ALCO T-6 that our local chapter of the NRHS owns. Steam is cool but it looks soo much better with real smoke coming from the stack and ash/cinders falling from the sky. Thats a nice looking old "Mike" by the way! It looks to be mint.

Here are some pics from this morning, they are crappy cell phone shots but it shows some of the restoration projects that are done and are beginning.

This N&W 522, its a EMD GP-30, kinda rare like the T-6.


This is a N&W class M2 4-8-0 that is getting a cosmetic resto and will go to the city of Portsmouth VA for display.



This is another Class M2 N&W #1118 Its got some possibilities and may run some day. I helped them set the pilot beam on it after this pic was taken. The boiler is getting ultrasounded this week and if it passes then we will start a fundraiser to get it running again. It will cost at least 500k


These are some old Baldwin Diesels(cant remember the classification) from the Chesapeake and Western RR, they will never run again but will get a cosmetic restoration and be used for display only. All of these locomotives were rescued from a local scrap yard that had gone out of business and the land had been bought for development.

xjtrailrider said:

Why not coal? Its cheap,...

Click to expand...

Thank the envirowackos for that I guess.

...,Steam is cool but it looks so much better with real smoke coming from the stack and ash/cinders falling from the sky. Thats a nice looking old "Mike" by the way! It looks to be mint.

Click to expand...

That's true. There's a group that runs a historic railway in southern Ohio's got a 2-6-2 that's still a coal burner. It's pretty cool to watch that baby run.

I rode the Grand Canyon Railway up to the canyon. It was pretty cool - my first time on a train.

Looks like the Baldwin locomotive I worked on in the early 1980's. Do you have any use for an instruction pamphlet dated 1945 for No. 14-EL Brake Equipment by The Westinghouse Air Brake Company?

How is that train to the Canyon? The wife and I have been talking about going to see the GC one of these days and I think that would be really cool to see it like that.

Wow, awesome pictures!

BTW - for all you train repair/restorer guys, I've located a small (12 cylinder diesel, locomotive number 1423, unknown owners, on a semi abandoned stretch of track in Greenfield NH) locomotive that looks like it could be restored to running condition. It was made by General Motors at some unknown time, based on the fact that it has vacuum tubes and relays for control circuitry and a retrofitted radio containing early PCBs I can't imagine it was made any later than the 40s or 50s. How would one go about finding out who owns it and possibly transporting it to restore it, and would it be worth doing? It's been vandalized a bit but most of the stuff aside from the cab looks to be in OK shape.

Hey Sonic, was that engine always diesel or heating oil fired or was it a converted Coal/Wood burner?

Ricker said:

Looks like the Baldwin locomotive I worked on in the early 1980's. Do you have any use for an instruction pamphlet dated 1945 for No. 14-EL Brake Equipment by The Westinghouse Air Brake Company?

Click to expand...

That would be neat! I think that these Baldwins had 6N or D24 air brake systems but the cabs are gutted so I'm not 100% They have been parked in a scrap yard since 1964. The steam locomotives have been sitting since 1951.

kastein said:

Wow, awesome pictures!

BTW - for all you train repair/restorer guys, I've located a small (12 cylinder diesel, locomotive number 1423, unknown owners, on a semi abandoned stretch of track in Greenfield NH) locomotive that looks like it could be restored to running condition. It was made by General Motors at some unknown time, based on the fact that it has vacuum tubes and relays for control circuitry and a retrofitted radio containing early PCBs I can't imagine it was made any later than the 40s or 50s. How would one go about finding out who owns it and possibly transporting it to restore it, and would it be worth doing? It's been vandalized a bit but most of the stuff aside from the cab looks to be in OK shape.

Click to expand...

Does it have a road name on it? Or a business name? That is most likely a SW1200 but it could be a lot of different switchers. If the exhaust stacks are not capped and the water was not drained from the block properly it is most likely frozen and or cracked and not rebuild able.....but with enough money anything can be fixed! It could be transported by truck, the Baldwins pictured were hauled by truck for about 5 miles through the city streets of Roanoke

Sweet