SPENCER, N.C. – I kept finding myself uttering strange phrases Tuesday during the preparatory work for Streamliners at Spencer, the cab unit festival at the North Carolina Transportation Museum, where I’ve volunteered since 1986. Among the key phases: “This cannot be real.” “This is like Christmas morning.” “This is like stepping into the Twilight Zone…In a good way.”
Indeed, on the second day of preparations for one of the most amazing gatherings of locomotives in recent years, I kept thinking about the assembly of 25 diesel locomotives and one special steam locomotive that play a starring role: It is incredibly good in so many ways. Just seeing all this pack together in one place, is the thing of dreams. But the wonderful thing about this is that it is reality.
So many significant locomotives are on hand. The only Alco PA that is in one piece is here. So is the world’s only E3 and E5. The oldest operating set of Fs, an ABA set no less, are on hand. The 10,000th locomotive that Electro-Motive Division built is here, as is the original FP7 demonstrator. The FT demonstrator, the diesel that did it in 1939 is enroute. It is an amazing cast, certainly one that has never been together before in history and probably will never be together ever again.
I found myself seeing one amazing scene after another: An Erie E8 with Norfolk & Western Class J No. 611. A Southern Railway E8 in Southern Crescent green and gold towing in a Union Pacific E9. Norfolk Southern’s two executive F9s along side Iowa Pacific E8 No. 515. As Trainmaster Jerry Shephardson told me, “There are a 1,001 photo possibilities.”
So, let me share a few of my favorite photos from this amazing day. We’ll be live streaming the event and sharing more blog posts here.
Rich Jahn prepares Lackawanna F7B No. 664 for touchup paint.
Monticello Railway Museum's Wabash F7 No. 1198 rests with Illinois Railway Museum's Chicago & North Western F7 No. 411.
Norfolk Southern's F9s share the yard with Iowa Pacific No. 515, Southern Railway No. 6133 and Southern Railway No. 6900, which is guiding UP E9 No. 949 to the roundhouse area.
Norfolk & Western Class J No. 611, Nickel Plate Road PA No. 190, and Southern Railway E8 No. 6900 gather around the turntable.
Alco PA owner Doyle McCormack removes temporary reporting marks from the side of his unit.
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