blue streak 1 Seems like a better location for a steamer get together might be at St. Louis at the RR museum. Does have a wye big enough for all. Turntable ?
Seems like a better location for a steamer get together might be at St. Louis at the RR museum. Does have a wye big enough for all. Turntable ?
All wrong.
The museum only has a connection to the UP; UP is not steam-friendly except for their own. There is no wye at the museum, nor is there a turntable. The museum's trackage is extremely tight and full of equipment, so there'd be little room to maneuver. A quick look at the google maps view of the museum will show this.
... and let's not mention the lack of fueling and water capabilities at that location.
When the NRHS convention was held in St. Louis, it was at Union Station, under the good grace of UP. Even then it was a tight fit for all the locomotives.
With enough advanced planning im sure a route could be worked out& it would bring huge crowds
While I was attending the Streamliner event at Spencer a group was asking some of the museum representatives what the next big event would be. A steam locomotive show was suggested. The consensus was the logistics involved for such would not make it possible.
Be neat, but western locomotives are signifigantly bigger in size, they'd have cleance issues once they started getting furthur east. This would no doubt make the railroad they are on grumpy that traffic is tied up and they have to reroute the steamer.
This was one reason the SLSTA didn't choose SP 4460 back in the 80's. They figured out that the locomotive just wouldn't clear a lot of the platforms.
Many of the locomotives wouldn't even fit on the turntable in spencer.
So this has been in my brain. and i think it is a pretty good idea. So what if we did a 4-8-4 gathering in spencer north carolina? and we had all avaible 4-8-4,s come and hang out. i mean the 844. the 4449, the 261. the 3751. the 2926. the the 611. the 2102 the 2100. maybe even cotten belt 819 and C & O 614. and more. how cool could that be? we could call it Northerns at spencer. is it possible? would you think? would the railroads and owners and chapters and even spencer be on board? plus sorry for not being on as much in these discussions. but i am back!!!!!
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