Train Tuesdays Some great reading is Kipp Teague’s website with the story, complete with sound clips and videos, of Norfolk and Western Class J #611′s last run back to Roanoke after Norfolk Southern ended their previous steam operations program in 1994: When I think back on seeing and hearing the 611 under steam for what [...]
Train Tuesdays Why do thousands of people want the 611 to be restored to special excursion service? Why do so many people, myself included, love the locomotive? I think this video does the best job I’ve seen of explaining the phenomenon. This was produced by Norfolk Southern after the locomotive was restored the first time [...]
This just announced news from Roanoke, Virginia could not wait for Train Tuesdays. From the FireUp611.org website: Since her retirement, rail fans have clamored, hoped and dreamed that she return to the rails, to blow her whistle and steam over the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains once again. For many of us, the 611 doesn’t [...]
Train Tuesdays I scanned a couple more pictures from our trip behind Norfolk and Western Class J number 611, a star of the Norfolk Southern steam program in the 1980s and ’90s. The steam excursion was a round-trip from Alexandria to Charlottesville on June 1, 1986. Note that Chessie GP40-2 #4371 was used to turn [...]
Train Tuesdays Once A Fan, Always a Fan… This 1986 photo was taken showing me standing next to N&W 611 in Charlottesville: 25 Years Later… And this one was taken 25 years later in Roanoke on our recent trip to the Virginia Museum of Transportation: Tweet