I usually start thinking about planning travel to enjoy what little steam is left running about this time of year. I blame it on Southern Railway and Jim Bistline, who set the railroad’s steam excursion schedule every winter. It was the most anticipated piece of mail that I can recall as a teenager or a young adult in the late 1970s and early 1980s: You could see what locomotives Southern was running, where, and when, and plan a whole year’s worth of steam railroading fun. There were also a lot of really cool locomotives that were running on short lines and tourist railroads that I am glad I got to ride and photograph while they were still active. I was photo researching in my slide boxes when I found three favorite images of locomotives that are no longer running. I share them with the reminder that travel is a real gift, memories are out there for the taking if you’ll just show up, and nothing lasts forever — especially not operating steam. Enjoy, and soon here I’ll share my hopes and dreams for the steam highlights of 2018 as I see them.

1. Hartwell Railroad 2-6-2- No. 11. I knew of this Prairie as a child as it became famous along with sister 2-6-2 No. 108 and 2-8-0 No. 1702 on Arkansas’ Reader Railroad, that 1960s mixed train bastion. Trains covered the Reader often, and Editor David P. Morgan was even on hand for the christening of No. 1702 (now at Great Smoky Mountains Railway in North Carolina). When No. 11 showed up on Georgia’s Hartwell Railroad in the early 1980s, I had to see it. On this late November 1983 day, owner Frank Pollock has the engine running at a gallop with one coach near Airline, Ga. He’d painted the engine in a Southern Railway-inspired green and gold. Sadly, Pollock lost his life in a traffic accident, and No. 11 went wandering to Kentucky, where it ran yet again. Today, it’s on display in Nocholasville.

2. Pennsylvania Railroad 4-4-0 No. 1223. The engine used in the movie, “Hello, Dolly!” A real, operating 4-4-0! A real, operating PRR engine. When I caught up to the engine on Pennsylvania’s iconic tourist railroad, the Strasburg Rail Road, I had no idea that No. 1223’s days were numbered. When it needed heavy work to keep it operating, the adjacent Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania declined the railroad’s offer, citing the desire to keep the engine original. It was good while it lasted, and at least No. 1223 is safe inside at the museum. But boy, was she ever a sight to behold in steam, especially on this day, Oct. 2, 1989 at the Groff’s Grove picnic area.

3. Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 No. 610. One of the original Lima Superpower locomotives of the late 1920s, No. 610 proved to be an exciting addition to Southern’s excursion stable between 1977 and 1981. I rode the engine on Atlanta-Toccoa, Ga., and Chattanooga-Harriman, Tenn., excursions in 1978 and 1979, respectively, and spent high quality hours in the open Dutch door, where I could soak up the sights, sounds, and smells of the big Texas-type eating up mile after mile at 50 mph. Today, she’s kept under cover at the Texas State Railroad near Rusk, and pulled out into the sunlight from time to time. I am glad to have ridden behind her and photographed her in action, such as this July 1978 day near Black Mountain, N.C., on the way to the Eastern Continental Divide at Ridgecrest.

 Learn more about massive historic locomotives that are still in operation with Big Steam is Back, our 100-page special issue, and its companion DVD, both available at https://www.kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/special-issue/vt-tr2170601

We’re throwing a steam-powered party this August, and you’re invited. We’re sponsoring a photo charter with the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, that 64-miles of serpentine narrow gauge tracks that seem to dart across the state line more than there are peaks in the spectacular San Juan Mountains that is home for this line (OK, that’s an exaggeration, but it sure seems like it at times). We’re there to commemorate the last runs of Rio Grande freights across 10,000-foot Cumbres Pass 50 years ago. Yes, as a child of the 1960s myself, it is hard to believe that 1968 is that far back, but it is. The end of regular service freight on the Rio Grande that year was not only an important milestone for the narrow gauge: It also was the last time a Class I railroad ran steam-powered freights that weren’t part of an excursion or public relations program. This was the real deal, and this was the final curtain.

So, for two days, Aug 25 and 26, a pair of K-36 Mikados will be powering a freight that looks and feels as close to the one that took place in late August 1968. I won’t call it a replica because that’s not possible: Neither all of the freight cars nor all of the locomotives that made history in 1968 are still with us or in operation. But we will get close. Mikado No. 484, there for the last westbound train, will be part of the motive power. No. 483, which was on the point, is inoperable, but we’ll renumber another K-36 to represent it just for this event.

Never been on a photo charter and wonder what it’s all about? The best way to describe it is as a step into a time machine and setting the destination for the 1920s: You’ll be on board a real freight train, watching it from a vantage point on board that would be much like that of a brakeman. You’ll stop often at great photo locations, get off the train and assemble so that nobody is in the way, and let the train back past so that it can pull forward just for your enjoyment and photography. In the last 20 years, I’ve been on three such outings at the Cumbres & Toltec (the photos are from a July 2008 outing with Rio Grande 2-8-0 No. 315, now temporarily in residence at the CT&TS), and each gave me a new appreciation for railroading as it was almost 100 years ago, thousands of great steam action photos, and memories of good times and great railroading with friends, old and new.

So, if you’re ready to board the time machine, we’ve got it steamed up and ready to go. Check out the details below, and join us!   

http://trn.trains.com/magazine/trips/2018/01/cumbres-pass-photo-charter

[caption image="/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-07-48/3730.Lassen_5F00_Letters_5F00_For_5F00_Blog.jpg" position="right"]We all leave a paper trail. This particular segment came as a surprise. (Photo by David Lassen)[/caption]So we’re doing some reshuffling of office space here at Kalmbach, which means a lot of people are going through their desks and tossing out stuff that they don’t need to cart down the hall. (Trains ‘ relocation is still in the future, so my office is just as cluttered as ever. The 37 bobbleheads on the window sill are safe for now)

One of the people who did make the move this week was former Trains editor J. David Ingles, senior editor at Classic Trains. During his cleaning process, he walked into my office, grinning, and handed me some papers: My cover letter, resume, and some clippings from when I applied for an associate editor job at Trains.

In 1987.

Funny thing: I don’t even remember applying then. The cover letter (which, in retrospect, is way, way, way too long) indicates that Dave and I had talked about the job at Winterrail in Stockton, Calif., a few days earlier. It also indicates that I included some photos, and that the clips included “two of the few rail-oriented articles I have written.” (I was, at the time, a sportswriter at the Thousand Oaks, Calif, News Chronicle.) While a couple of sports article are still with the cover letter, the rail-related clips in question are not. It’s been suggested that they may be somewhere in our legendary David P. Morgan Library, but since I don’t recall the subject matter, I’m unable to search for them. Perhaps I'll stumble across them one day.

Dave also had a copy of his initial response, which returned my photos and indicated the position would be filled within the next month.

The fact that I don’t even recall applying for the job in 1987 suggests that I did so mostly out of curiosity. At the time, I was barely a year into the job in Thousand Oaks, and it proved to be a good spot for me — I lasted there, or at the successor Ventura County Star, for 25 years.

In retrospect, I think things worked out pretty well. As a few of you may recall from the blurb in Trains when I was hired, I had a decent run as a sportswriter. I covered five Olympics for the Star and the (now defunct) Scripps Howard News Service, and had at least a taste of most other major U.S. sporting events — including a World Series, a couple of Stanley Cup Finals, three NCAA Final Fours and a bunch of NBA finals, with a stint as a Dodgers beat writer. I look back fondly on all those things.

And when things started going south in the newspaper business, I sent off another resume to Trains. Given a second chance a mere 27 years later, they hired me.

I suppose there are a couple of morals: Just because someone says no once, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again. And things do indeed tend to happen when the time is right.

Now, while I’m pretty happy with how things turned out, you’d have to ask Dave Ingles and the folks at Kalmbach if they feel the same way. Consider the ne’er-do-well they hired instead of me.

It was a guy named Kevin P. Keefe.

 [caption image="/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-07-48/0410.Big-Red.png" position="right"]Here is the author's automobile. It's rusted, dinged, and decrepit ... but it goes in snow. Photo by Brian Schmidt[/caption]

Where I grew up in the snow belt regions Lake Erie shadows, and where eight feet of snow in a year is an average, not a record, when someone bought a car that's new to them, you ask how it drives in the snow.

Oh, you let them brag about their purchase first: The gas mileage, sunroof, third row or trunk space, how they got a "brand new" spare tire thrown in, or how much get-up-and-go it has, and how great it sounds with the aftermarket subwoofer the first owner installed. They might even tell you it's from the "South," denoting an automobile that lacks rust and has never seen corrosive salt-covered roads in winter time.

All the while you smile and nod waiting for your friend to pause so you can ask: "But how does it drive in the snow?"

And the answer to that question is the only answer you really need. Because when you're driving to work in snow drifts on brick streets, uphill and the wind is blowing, all that matters is whether the car "goes" or "will stop" when desired.

And that is my point about positive train control.

Class I railroad representatives say that the biggest railroads in the country will have PTC equipment fully installed by Dec. 31 this year. And yes, there's testing that needs to be done to make sure everything works right, but they say it will get done. PTC advocates say the compliant systems will be a boon for safety and efficiency. New mechanisms in the future could prevent grade crossing accidents, railroads could have rolling blocks and eliminate problems with fixed wayside equipment, and so on.

By law, any positive train control system in the U.S. — and there are at least four different branded systems that I am aware of — need do four things. A PTC system must "prevent train-to-train crashes, enforce speed limits, protect track workers, and keep trains from running through a misaligned switch."

Nothing more, nothing less.

In most cases, the PTC system that's installed on a right-of-way near you will work right on top of existing signals and control systems so as not to disturb what already works.

Why? Because railroads will have a hard enough time making sure PTC does what it's supposed to do, play nicely with other railroads' locomotives, and not have a succession of errors that force trains to stop frequently, gumming up the system.

By the way, even though all Class I railroads are set to have PTC completely installed by the end of this year, did you know how many will have it operational systemwide by then? Maybe BNSF Railway and maybe Union Pacific. But definitely? Zero.

The answer we've gotten at Trains is that PTC will work nationwide by 2020 so long as the Federal Railroad Administration grants extensions when and where needed.

Sadly, that won't get me to work on a snowy morning.

We are taught early on in childhood not to brag, especially about ourselves, and particularly not about home towns, or native states. Reckless bragging is disgraceful. A sign of poor manners. But maybe you will indulge me in a bit of gentle bragging on my home state, North Carolina. I was back recently and imposed on the good folks in the capital city of Raleigh for a preview of the new passenger station under construction and set for completion this spring.

If you haven’t heard of this $88 million project, I am here to predict that you will. Outside of California High Speed Rail and Brightline, I would dare say this is one of the biggest and boldest passenger train projects in the U.S. It is a station befitting a state capital, one corner of the famed Research Triangle Park, the home to megabits of knowledge and knowhow in the new world economy. The site is downtown and set to spark yet more residential and retail development in this urban setting.

The location us familiar to me. I went to college at nearby UNC-Chapel Hill and went train watching in the Boylan Tower area many times. It’s inside the wye (reader poll, how many other active stations are inside a wye in 2018?), where the Norfolk Southern and CSX main lines split after running jointly for about 10 miles to Cary. Once upon a time, until about 1950, there was a station here. Once upon a time about 30 years ago, trains called at the Seaboard Air Line depot on the north side of town, but then CSX took up the S-line between Norlina, N.C., and Petersburg, Va., and all trains began calling at the Southern Railway depot on Cabarrus Avenue. The SR structure is an old building and rather cramped for a state capital passenger station. So now the city and state are building a new station across from the current station that will be one for the ages – about 50 years into the future, to be precise. In about 10 years, that future could include commuter trains from Garner on the east and West Durham on the other side. Further down the road that could include high speed trains on a reborn S-Line. It is almost too much for me to fathom. I hope to live long enough to see it all unfold. Sadly, the SR station will be demolished to make room for more track.

The new station is incredible – it combines parts of the old Dillion Supply Co. building with new construction. A wall of the supply company creates one end of the three-story building. Overhead cranes decorate the ceiling. It has room for retail and for a restaurant. It has a platform that’s 900-feet long, enough to get most if not all of the Silver Star on one platform. And it has a train watching platform at the point where both legs of the wye are formed. Planners wisely reused the skin of the old Dillion supply for artwork to decorate the concourse leading to the platforms. Every step and every turn speak of thoughtfulness and a lot of passengers.

N.C. Department of Transportation has been working to make passenger train travel good once again since launching the Carolinian in 1984 (I was on board the inaugural as a reporter for Passenger Train Journal), its station rehabilitation work, intrastate Piedmont passenger trains, and most recently with its Piedmont Improvement Project to put doubletrack back on the Charlotte-Greensboro portion of the NS mainline, thus cutting the running time between the state’s three biggest cities. In the southeast, only Virginia has taken on passenger train projects with a passion, seriousness, and pocketbook. South Carolina and Georgia are content with barebones passenger train service. Think about Raleigh’s new station the next time you board the Crescent in Atlanta on that sliver of land on the edge of I-85 known as Peachtree Station.

As we were wrapping up the tour of the Raleigh construction site, one of the Piedmont intrastate trains from Charlotte arrived at Cabarrus Avenue, made its station stop, and then went through the wye and back to its servicing yard until its next trip. In a matter of months, possibly early May, it will start stopping at the new station. And once that happens, I predict that more people will be talking about this station and North Carolina’s long-term investment in its transportation future. Bragging on my home state? Perhaps so, but indulge me with one more thought: North Carolina’s state motto is “esse quam videri.” That’s Latin for “to be, rather than to seem.” Or, bring that up to date with a popular saying, “It’s not bragging if it’s true.”

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, this is the time of year when I anticipate mainline steam schedules, plan trips to see newly restored and notable locomotives, and find time to make calls and send emails to my steam friends to see who is planning to go where and where we might cross paths, or tracks in our case. We’ll see who is willing to break the bank and stretch vacation time to make one more trip. It’s an optimistic time, when we all look forward to what will excite and inspire us all with stack talk, whistles, and flailing rods.

Right now, there’s not much that’s set. Union Pacific has said it plans to run 4-8-4 No. 844 on only one occasion in 2018. That will be on the Cheyenne Frontier Days trip between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyo., on July 21, plus the deadhead trip the week before and the deadhead trip back home to Cheyenne on July 22. Otherwise, the UP steam team will stick to the shop and keep working on Big Boy No. 4014 with the aim of completing and steaming the 4-8-8-4 in 2019 to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Golden Spike. More on how the Big Boy is a potential game changer in a moment.

The other mainline locomotives – Milwaukee Road No. 261, Norfolk & Western No. 611, Nickel Plate Road No. 765, and Southern Pacific No. 4449 -- are no doubt developing excursion plans and negotiating with Amtrak and host railroads. They're doing their time in the shop: No. 765 is finishing a 1,472-day inspection, and No. 611 is getting staybolt work at Spencer, N.C. Given that most operators like to have a few months to market and sell their trips, I’d say it is a safe bet that the spring of 2018 will be quiet: By this time last year, we’d already heard from 611 and 4449 about spring excursion plans, and it wasn’t long after that 261 and 765 announced their Midwestern trips that took place in June. I would say that if everything works out, this spring silence bodes well for a fall excursion season as vibrant as autumn colors. My recommendation: Stick around to see how it all plays out. Save those scarce vacation days for later in the year.

I would think that every engine capable of a mainline trip will try for at least one excursion this year for two reasons: 1. Just in case Congress doesn’t extend the Dec. 31 deadline for Positive Train Control implementation, expensive and time-consuming modifications will be necessary after this year to stay operational. And 2. When UP unleashes No. 4014, whether it is a short 2019 tour or a long one, the most anticipated locomotive restoration of our time will be the focus of every steam locomotive aficionado in 2019; trying to compete against Big Boy for an audience will be almost impossible.   

So, once again, my advice, as always, is to get out there and enjoy these big locomotives on the main line. Don’t put off an excursion. You never know what the future will hold for big steam on the main line.

Elsewhere, I suggest you pay attention to two areas of the country: the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. Arizona’s Grand Canyon Railway has said it will run 2-8-2 No. 4960 and 2-8-0 No. 29 this year. The plan is to run one or both of the locomotives on the first Saturday of every month starting in March plus three additional days, including April 21, Earth Day; and Sept. 15, the railroad’s anniversary.

 Meanwhile, Scott Wickert’s humble tourist railroad on the Pacific shore, the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, could well become the new hub for steam in the region with Skip Lichter’s Polson 2-8-2 No. 2 joining McCloud 2-6-2 No. 25 this year plus a two-truck Heisler. If the crew at Oregon Coast completes legendary 2-4-4-2 Skookum this year, and the boiler tubes have been loaded, that will cement Garibaldi, Ore., as one of the top bucket list destinations for the steam-starved steam devotee.

Get out there and enjoy our American steam this year. To learn more, be sure to subscribe to Trains and read Newswire at www.TrainsMag.com for exclusive stories about the most recent restoration and excursion news. And join us for our photo charter commemorating the last steam freights on Cumbres Pass in 1968 at Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Aug. 25-26.  Details:  http://trn.trains.com/magazine/trips/2018/01/cumbres-pass-photo-charter

[caption image="/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-07-48/1222.TRN_5F00_75_5F00_FunFacts_5F00_05.jpg" position="right" targeturl="http://trn.trains.com/landing/trains75/fun-facts"]Trains Magazine has about 100 editorial photos in each issue. One of them could be yours![/caption]Spring is right around the corner, and for most of us that means more time trackside with a camera. For better or worse, when you send an email to photoeditor@trainsmag.com, I'll be the first one that sees it. I get a lot of questions about specific images, which we often have no immediate use for. People, it seems, want to see the photos they've already taken in print, but don't want to give any thought to shooting for publication when trackside. That's a shame because a typical issue of Trains contains about 100 editorial photos. So, for everyone who never thought to plainly ask "How do I get a photo published in Trains Magazine," here's a quick guide:

1. Tell a story– The best photos often don't need a caption. The gleaming paint tells us it's a new locomotive. The landmark tells us it's a detour move. Use signs, landmarks, people, and other props to put railroading in context.

2. Be unique – A train photographed at a 3/4 angle at a grade crossing usually doesn't tell that desired story. Keep your eye out for unique compositions that lend themselves to print, too, especially vertical photos. To date, we have yet to publish a horizontal cover, so we always need lots of vertical compositions to review each month.

[caption image="/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-07-48/4454.TRN_5F00_75_5F00_FunFacts_5F00_14.jpg" position="left" targeturl="http://trn.trains.com/landing/trains75/fun-facts"]With about 50 contributors to each issue, there's plenty of room for new talent to come onboard![/caption]3. Send only your best – Self-editing is an important skill in both writing and photography. We archive much of what's submitted for future use. If your name is attached to the better images in our collection we may also ask you for specific subjects in your area.

4. Leave the editing to us – It may come as a surprise to some, but Trains has a talented design staff that can process your images to match our printing specs. When you send a highly edited JPG image, or a photo with a watermark, we probably can't use it as-is, so it will be rejected for archiving. And if it's a photo that was requested, we'll have to come back to request a clean one for publication. Not good for anyone.

5. Include caption info – Yes, the best photos don't need a caption, but it's our policy to publish a caption with each image. So when you do upload those images at http://fileupload.kalmbach.com/contribute/, be sure to include full caption information in the comments field. It will help us understand what's going on and how we might best use them in the future.

To learn more about where to spend your time trackside, pick up our new Hot Spots special issue, available now for the 2018 railfan season.

Deep inside the cavernous backshop at Cheyenne, Wyo., a giant is coming back to life. I saw it with my own eyes on a visit earlier this week. Here's what I saw.

Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 is about as disassembled as you can get and still be counted as a locomotive. The wheels are out from underneath it – all 24 of them – and 100-ton freight car trucks support the frame. It currently holds the title of the world’s largest 0-0-0-0. The boiler is as empty as it has been since Alco built the 4-8-8-4 in 1941. The cab is in another part of the shop and resting near 4-8-4 No. 844. The tender, as yet un-rebuilt, is sitting in the yard. But there are signs of progress everywhere at the Alamo of Steam. They are the kind of signs that give confidence to the crew that is laboring so hard to see this done, the railroad that wants to see this behemoth completed as a goodwill ambassador, and the fans who have long dreamed of a Big Boy back in steam.

The news out of Cheyenne in mid-March 2018 is this: The crew is working hard on multiple tasks to get the job done. They’re sequestered in a “clean room” machine shop, where computerized machine tools of today are bringing back the past. They’re huddled around the gigantic trailing truck frame (estimated weight, 17,000 pounds and the size of a small car) that’s been removed. They’re perched in a lift on the side of the boiler. Respectively, they’re making bolts, inspecting the casting, and welding. They’re also deep inside the firebox, where the task of renewing metal is ongoing. It is relentless, exhausting, and exhilarating work all at one time. But you can sense that this is a crew that is proud of getting the 4-8-4 back on the road in 2016 and that is on the verge of something big, something that was always believed to be too big to ever happen, too far out of reach, or just a silly dream. But dream no more. Throughout the shop, confidence is high that we’ll see No. 4014 done in time to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad in May 2019. That will be 60 years since a Big Boy last pulled revenue freight in regular service. It will be a cause of celebration among those who love steam the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

Ed Dickens, the railroad’s manager for the restoration and the steam program in general, says the job is about 50 percent done. The focus is on the 300 psi boiler that is the heart of this 7,000 horsepower giant of the rails. He estimates that 85 to 90 percent of the parts needed to restore the locomotive are on hand. Boxes of new staybolts of varying lengths await installation. The steam exhaust water pump sits ready on a workbench. A Nathan lubricator shines in fresh gloss black having been overhauled. The much celebrated burner for oil firing is in the building. The crossheads are nearly done with machining. The brake stand has been rebuilt. The list is a long and tedious one, but such is the way of steam locomotive restoration for the mainline on a stage that only Union Pacific could provide. Only one highly visible part of the old No. 4014 – the ashpans from the locomotive’s coal burning days – will go away with the conversion to oil firing.  The time for taking parts off Big Boy has passed, and the time for putting new or refurbished parts back on has arrived.

That is extremely evident one track over from the Big Boy, where the front engine awaits wheels and a boiler: The front pilot has been renewed. Rebuilt cross-compound air pumps are installed on the platform. Lubrication lines, soon to be covered up by the boiler, snake across the top of the frame in all directions.

Soon, the drivers with new tires and crank pins will return from rebuilding at the Strasburg Rail Road. Workers will load the tubes and flues into the boiler. Reassembly will begin with thousands of parts ready to breathe new life into this old friend. The railroad will run No. 844 only once this year on the Cheyenne Frontier Days train in July so the crew can stay focused on the Big Boy. That is a small price to pay for a Big Boy back in steam.

The next chapter in the story of the much celebrated Big Boy locomotives is being written. The giant is coming back to life.

Read more about the restoration of No. 4014 in the June 2018 issue of Trains magazine.

Some 26 years ago, in an act of desperation, a sheltered American who’d never been overseas but was about to take his first European vacation called a well-traveled magazine editor in Vermont for advice: I’d signed up for a group tour of UK and the continent, but I still want to try to strike out on my own to see some of its railroads. I have two free days in England, the possible safest environment for a neophyte. I was nervous. What should I do? Where should I go? Mark Smith, editor of the late Locomotive & Railway Preservation magazine, unflinchingly suggested that I take my two free days and visit one of the best railroad museums in the world, the National Railway Museum in York, and one of the country’s oldest and best preservation railways, the Blue Bell. Mark was right. I had a blast at both. I pledged to go back to explore more.

Now, five European trips later, all of them in the last 10 years (the delay much to my disappointment), I happily look forward to another trip across the pond to explore Europe and its railways. They never fail to surprise and delight, and it helps me to put American railroads in perspective. Thanks to our books department and Trains columnist and author Brian Solomon, we now have an indispensable tutorial for the first-time traveler and a great resource and inspiration for the veteran. “Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe” provides 415 pages of great photos, history, and highlights to for 17 countries.

I’ve been looking forward to this guide ever since Associate Editor Brian Schmidt suggested the project. For many Americans, European railways are still a mystery, but they don’t have to be. In the Rick Steves-era of informed European travel, a resource like this with its focus on railroads is essential. I just got the book plopped on my desk earlier this week, and I have only had a short time to flip through it once and make a quick review of my three favorite countries, Great Britain, Germany, and Switzerland.

Each of the three countries gets about 40 well-deserved pages. Brian explores England, the birthplace of railroading; its great network; the stunning arched bridges of the Settle & Carlisle; London’s multitude of great stations; the Tube. In Germany, Brian extols the virtues of the Rhine River Valley, Berlin’s magnificent stations, and the incomparable Harz, a steam lover’s paradise and the best guess as to how the Rio Grande narrow gauge would look today if it had survived and been modernized. He shows us Switzerland’s best routes to the top of Europe, suggests Gotthard Pass (the old line) and the Glacier Express, among numerous experiences (If you want to join our September 2018 Swiss tour from Trains and Special Interest Tours, sadly, we’re sold out; that’s the bad news; the good news: We’re developing plans for another Swiss tour in 2019.)

So, here’s to Randy and Tom who took Brian’s work and made it into both useful and beautiful volume that everyone who has an ounce of curiosity in them needs. Here’s to Brian who used his great powers of observation and his years of experience in Europe (he lives part time in Dublin, an easy jumping off point) to create something amazing. And here’s to European railways that I’ve come to know, and to those yet to be explored. I’ll be back.

Order a copy of Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe from us at https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/01304

Last week, Amtrak said it would no longer run special trains or charters and would severely restrict running private cars. The railroad said it was about profitability and time keeping and customer service. The change hits the 150 or so private cars (some place the figure closer to 250) that are still fit for the mainline, big steam locomotives that venture out once or twice a year on the main, and a handful of non-profits that utilize charter trains or tack private cars on Amtrak trains as part of their revenue mix (full disclosure here, my home non-profit, the North Carolina Transportation Museum & Foundation, is one of these groups).

Everyone that I know of who has a stake in this is taking some action to change the policy. They’re calling congressmen and women, mounting petition drives, and issuing policy statements about the economic impact of the change on their own organizations, their supporters, and their communities. Some are citing portions of a congressional act that encourages Amtrak to run special passenger trains. Some are blaming Amtrak for leaving money on the table. It’s made a lot of people deeply committed to railroading pretty mad.

I hope Amtrak President Richard Anderson listens and responds. Private cars are a great tradition and magnificent showpieces of American industrial and entrepreneurial history. Charter trains and specials are a splendid way to introduce railroading and train travel to a public that’s largely forgotten that railroads still exist. I love all of these trains, and I think they’re to the benefit of all for them to continue.

But I hope my friends in the private car business, in the non-profit world, and who run that handful of mainline steam locomotives will do more than just demand that Anderson bend to their wishes. I hope they’ll think about what they can do to make it in Amtrak’s best interests to run their private cars and special trains. Some specific ideas:

• They need to come in with a solemn pledge and a solid plan to police themselves and eliminate bad actors in the private car arena who scoff at safety rules. Yes, there are private car operators who’ve behaved badly, and they need to be sidelined.

• They need to make sure that Amtrak gets its due credit when they run a train under Amtrak insurance and with Amtrak crews and with that P42 diesel inserted in the train. (When was the last time you boarded a steam excursion that even whispered about Amtrak? Was there a sign that said the train was run by Amtrak?)

• They need to use the time they have with their passengers to help sell Amtrak’s regular trains, to generate repeat riders, and to incubate new supporters of passenger rail. Captive audiences are ripe for this sort of indoctrination.

Anderson has only been on the job for three months. I haven’t met him, and I don’t know him. What I hear about him and have seen so far is that he’s not bound to tradition. He’s interested in filling seats. Period. And the less trouble it is to fill those seats, the better.

He’s also got to be worried about diluting the company’s scarce resources. Amtrak is strained as it is to keep its regular trains running. His business side must be telling him to stay focused.

Basically, friends in PV, non-profit, and steam locomotive land, you need to come to the table with hat in hand, a warm smile, and most importantly, a better offer. Up the ante. Make it worthwhile to Mr. Anderson.

The last figure I heard was that Amtrak earned about $3.7 million in private car moves and special trains on an overall budget of $2.2 billion. That’s about .17 percent of the total budget. There’s a lot of effort that goes on behind the scenes to make that $3.7 million happen. They aren’t cheap or easy dollars to earn. You cannot provide enough money to make this attractive, so figure out something else.

Remember also, that our traditions may seem foreign and strange to someone who isn’t from Train World. When Anderson, a former airline CEO went to work as Amtrak’s new boss, I have a vision of his staff sitting him down to explain private cars. I can see them using an analogy that goes something like this: “From time to time, on our Washington-Chicago route, we carry a 1920s private car with a dozen people on it. It’s like tying a Jenny bi-plane to the back of a 777.” Then everyone ducks as the man spits his coffee across the room.

There’s a new boss at Amtrak. Any time there’s a new boss, all old bets are off. It’s time to renegotiate and sweeten the pot.

Joliet Junction Railroad on its first day of operations in 1994. Photo by Joe Petric

Having moved around a lot as a kid, I count Joliet, Ill., as one of probably five hometown railroads. I spent my high school and college years in this area. My first apartment was adjacent to a short line called the Joliet Junction Railroad. The 6-mile former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern branch line was out of service and, during my time living there, in disarray. 

The EJ&E abandoned the branch after a fire damaged a wooden trestle it decided wasn’t worth the cost to repair. Don Bachman, who also owned locomotive rebuilder Relco, bought the line and named it Joliet Junction Railroad. After repairing the damage, Joliet Junction operated for five years, 1994-99. Joliet Junction had main line connections with the EJ&E at Crest Hill, Ill., and CSX Transportation at Rockdale, Ill. In 1999, Bachman sold the line to the Forest Preserve District of Will County, who worked to turn it into a bike path. 

As I sat on my back porch, peeking through some brush, I couldn’t help but watch with fascination the machinery pulling up the track. Little did I know that a couple of years later I’d work for this magazine. Kismet, I suppose. I didn’t take any pictures of the obliterated line, but did acquire a souvenir spike, which resides in my office. Thanks to Classic Trains Senior Editor Dave Ingles for connecting me with Joe Petric, who provided the photo above of the first day of operations on the Joliet Junction in 1994. 

Former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern spike. Photo by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak 

Please consider entering the 2018 Trains Photo Contest, sponsored by Sigma, with the theme “My Hometown Railroad.” What railroad resonates with you? Show us. Find all the details: www.TrainsMag.com/photocontest

Greetings from Nashville, Tenn., where we are exhibiting and writing about the nation’s more than 500 short line and regional railroads at the annual conference of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association. Here’s a quick postcard of the conversations that we’re hearing often at this gathering of industry professionals. What we’re hearing this year is among the widest ranging and wildest in terms of tone. Some samples:

“I’m surprised that Amtrak went as far as it did with private car moves and special trains. It seems extreme. I hope they walk at least some of it back.”

“The Class I railroads are a mess. They can’t get us cars. We have business for them, but they cannot handle it.”  

“We’re seeing new industry that is involved in producing heavy, bulky items locating new plants off rail. It’s discouraging. We need to educate a new generation of industrial site specialists that railroads are important, and they need us at least as an option.”

“We had a slow January and February, but come March, our business just took off.”

“We had a better year in 2017 than we realized.”

“We’re going to be able to get new locomotives.”

“We’ve got a new train running seven days a week. It’s great traffic for us.”

“How will CSX win back all of that business?”

"We should have had a field trip on the commuter train here in Nashville." 

Interestingly, so far, there have been few if any conversations that we’ve been privy to about Positive Train Control, Federal Railroad Administration oversight, or any other changes at Amtrak. What we have seen once again is a lot of hard working railroaders who come up with creative solutions to the age old problem of how to move freight (and in some case passengers, commuters, or tourists) as safely and as efficiently as possible.

We’ll try and report from some of the breakout sessions later today, and be sure to watch news wire for a story about Tuesday’s speech from BNSF Railway Executive Chairman Matt Rose.  

I just got back from the American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn. From Sunday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon, my colleagues Mike Yuhas, Jane Brenner, and I were on hand to meet readers, advertisers, and learn more about this important side of the railroad industry. It’s one of the reasons why you saw extra attention to this business in our April issue. The trade show’s two days were packed with seminars, speakers, and networking (more on the topics I listened to later). So after BNSF Railway Executive Chairman Matt Rose spoke (actually he appeared in a Q&A interview format with the association’s Linda Bauer Darr), I was ready to explore the city that’s long been a mystery to me but is starting to become more familiar with each visit. After a good barbecue lunch, Trains reader and logistics consultant Jon Gilbert and I set out to explore some of the highlights. Here’s what we found.

After warning Jon about Nashville’s epic traffic, we joined the masses on Interstate 40 and trekked downtown. There, we did a driveby of the Tennessee Central Railway Museum (an E-unit, two B-units, and a Geep were visible among other goodies), saw a pair of Nashville & Eastern four-axle GEs, and spotted the gorgeous Union Station (now a hotel, see our Trains Presents video from a previous visit), we wandered to The Gulch, the famous downtown hot spot where it seems like just about all CSX trains in this city eventually pass or pause for a crew change. I’ve used the balcony at Union Station to watch trains before and enjoyed it, but this time we took to the Kayne Avenue bridge adjacent to the tower there and enjoyed a real show of freight traffic. From locals to mixed freight intermodal hotshots, we saw it all in a short time. We included The Gulch in our 75 great places to watch trains in our Hot Spots special issue (ordering info here https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/special-issue/vt-tr05180101-c ), and this brief but productive visit confirmed the decision to do so.

Our next stop was Centennial Park, near Vanderbilt University, where there is not only a full-sized copy of the Parthenon but the sole surviving Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway 4-8-4, No. 576 (See Big Steam is Back, our special issue and DVD, here https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/special-issue/vt-tr2170601 ). The locomotive is the subject of an effort to restore it to operating condition for use on the Nashville & Eastern’s ex-Tennessee Central Railway that already hosts Music City Star commuter trains. Funding is coming in and if it keeps on rolling, the locomotive may be moved soon to the shop, where work can begin in earnest. For now, the volunteer crew is doing what it can to prepare the locomotive for the move and to get a headstart on the restoration. Evidence of that work was abundant as I did a quick walk around. (Full disclosure here, I hold a board of directors seat on the Nashville Steam Preservation Society, the group in charge of the restoration.) Learn more about it at www.nashvillesteam.org

From here, we struggled through more Nashville traffic to Riverfront Station to watch the Music City Star commuter train arrive and depart. The equipment is former Metra bi-levels and ex-Amtrak F40s, so it is a real trip back in time. Trains run push-pull with the cab car on the west (Nashville) end of the consist and the F40 leading trains outbound. There are three round trips in the morning and three in the afternoon for a 32-mile run to Lebanon on the east side of the city. We picked up former Trains Editor and retired Kalmbach Publishing executive Kevin Keefe and contributor David Busse after they harvested all of that mileage as collectors.

From here, we returned to the suburbs in Donelson and Hermitage to watch the other two commuter trains of the day. While in the city, I learned that Nashville has a transit referendum coming up next month. Perhaps there will be more trains like this one on future visits.

The more I visit Nashville, the more I like it and its railroads. I’ll have more on the show and on Nashville train watching. Keep an eye out for it.         

Ross Rowland has been a major figure in American steam locomotive preservation and operation for more than a half century. He is well known as the central figure of the High Iron Co. trips of the 1960s, the American Freedom Train, Chessie Steam Special, Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614, and numerous other projects. I asked Ross 20 odd questions about his affinity for steam, Richard Anderson’s Amtrak, C&O 1309, the Louisiana & Arkansas 503 in Texas, and more. Here’s what he told me.

What’s your favorite brand of gloves for running steam and why? 

 I use a good quality welder’s glove. In 1970 while I was running Nickel Plate Road No. 759 on the Middle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad returning from Horseshoe Curve with a 17-car excursion train the engineer’s side water glass failed and instantly filled the cab with steam and noise. I was able to get us safely stopped, and we were able to ascertain the source of the steam, isolate that glass, and resume moving towards Harrisburg. That taught me to A. Always wear long sleeved shirts on steam and B. Always wear good quality welder’s gloves.

What’s the best meal you’ve ever had on board a moving train? 

The most memorable meal I've had was hosting my late father aboard my private car the Enterprise on a trip on Amtrak No. 98 from Jacksonville, Fla., to New York City in 1984. Dad was a career long railroader (Central of New Jersey) and we had a great bonding that evening as we sped towards the Big Apple. When we got into the Washington, D.C. area we hit a major snow storm and by the time we got to NYC there was about 2 feet of snow on the open rear platform. Wonderful memories.

 If you could sit down to dinner with 3 people from the steam era, who would you pick?

David P. Morgan, Matthias Baldwin, Dante Porta

What two railroad publications would you want to take with you on a desert island?

Trains magazine editions from 1945-1955 and Locomotive & Railway Preservation magazine editions of the 1980s.

What’s your next steam trip? 

My next steam trip I hope will be behind the Union Pacific 844 this July, followed by my annual duty as engineer on Baldwin 2-8-0 No. 40 on the New Hope & Ivyland, hauling Santa trains.

No true steam fan should miss this experience: 

Riding behind the 844 on the UP at track speed.

What’s your favorite railroad artist? 

Bob Lorenz, close second Howard Fogg.

You were on board the tool car on 611 last year (above left with 611 volunteers and N&W steam author Bud Jeffries in a Chris Campbell photo). What one word sums up that experience?

Memorable.

What locomotive under rebuild today do you most look forward to? 

Dead tie. I guess by the tiniest of margins I'd say the Santa Fe 2926 ever so closely followed by the Union Pacific 4014. I've always had a preference for 4-8-4s and that Santa Fe is a beautiful brute (don't tell Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614 I said that !!).

If you could share one insight into the difficulty of restoring and running mainline steam today what would you say?

The most challenging aspect of running mainline steam is keeping all the needed railroad decision makers confident in both the machines ability to do the job and the engines team to bring the professionalism to the table so that all involved will be pleased with the results and not embarrassed. 

No steam locomotive is complete without:

A good auxiliary tank, good tool/shop car, and a good crew " mother" to keep the whole thing together.

What’s your take on PTC?

This is a very expensive mostly knee-jerk reaction to a tragic accident caused by human failure. Once fully implemented it will contribute some to helping avoid future bad wrecks and as every human life is priceless in that respect you can make a case that it's worthwhile. No system designed by humans can't be short circuited by humans. The Class I railroads are reluctantly embracing it as they see it long term enabling fully autonomous trains. There's some good work being done by several mainline steam operators to devise a "portable" PTC kit that can be shared by different steam locomotives, thus helping share the considerable costs. 

Richard Anderson, the new boss at Amtrak, has been making a lot of big changes. Do you think he’s on the right or the wrong track? 

Much too early to tell if he'll be viewed by history as a good Amtrak CEO. His very recent edicts eliminating charter trains and vastly restricting PV movements clearly show his lack of understanding of how important those constituent segments of Amtrak's support web are, and I hope he'll quickly see the mistake here and reverse course on these two items.

Since its birth in 1971 Amtrak's biggest challenge is trying to produce a transportation product that can compete in the marketplace (low cost airlines, buses, interstate highways) who each get massive subsidies that are hidden vs. Amtrak's line item subsidy in each fiscal year’s federal budget. Thus, Amtrak's federal support is an easy target vs. the others that are not. In many respects it's a miracle that Amtrak's national system is still running at all and has survived countless attempts by both parties to eliminate it.

My best guess is that somehow the national system will survive, and that Mr. Anderson will learn that the culture surrounding American railroading has very strong traditions and some aspects of it are very different than operating a successful airline. For his and railroading's sake I hope he proves to be a quick learner.

C&O 1309 has been a potentially great yet tremendously frustrating project for the east. What are your thoughts on finishing the locomotive?

The core issue here is way underestimating the cost of the effort. In 1980 we spent approximately $4 million in 2018 dollars on the rebuild of C&O 614. The 1309 had sat outside for longer than had the 614. No. 1309 is more complicated and any semi-educated guess going in was it was going to cost much more than what was given by the projects organizers. When the funds ran out and the engine remained a good ways short of boiling water the large funders (State of Maryland, the county government, and other donors) lost faith that the management knew what it was doing. My hope is that the State of Maryland will reconsider and decide to put another tranche of money into the project to get the 1309 up and running as she will most definitely bring lots of tourist dollars into Maryland and will help ensure the continued viability of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. I have faith that a way will be found to go forward and finish this important project.

What do you think about the situation with L&A 503 in Port Arthur, Texas? 

We all owe Jason Sobczynski a huge debt of gratitude for stepping into this issue the night before the scrappers were set to begin cutting this engine into little pieces. Quite to my pleasant surprise his Go Fund Me page raised over $ 65,000 in quick order and with that funding he made a handshake deal with the scrapper hired by the City of Port Arthur, Texas to purchase the engine, load it onto a low boy behind 18-wheelers and truck it to the Texas State Railroad for safe keeping and eventual restoration. As he was doing this the local newspaper brought it to the citizens attention and a handful of them raised enough noise that the City Council canceled the scrappers contract and has now decided to do what's needed to keep the engine in Port Arthur.

Jason is trying his best to convince them to let him use the funds donated by over 1,200 people to take proper care of the 503 and to give it a long-term future and the real chance of coming back to life vs. staying in Port Arthur and going back to being a rusting jungle gym. My read is that the 7 members of the City Council care more about keeping the locals happy than they do about 503's well-being. Hope I'm proven wrong.

If you could build one extinct locomotive from scratch, what would it be? 

If I had a magic wand and could bring back one steam engine from the past it would be a New York Central 6000-class Niagara.

If you could pull one locomotive that’s stuffed and mounted out and restore it, what would it be?

If I had the wherewithal to restore any currently stuffed and mounted steam engine it would be the 4-4-4 No. 2929 Canadian Pacific Jubilee Class, currently siting forlornly in Scranton, Pa.  I would give her a careful, complete rebuild and then attempt to break the existing steam locomotive world speed record of 127.5 mph with her. 

How excited are you that a Big Boy is coming back to life? 

What a great project and the best part is its being sponsored by America's most heritage conscious railroad, the great Union Pacific. I'm confident that once Ed Dickens and his team have her back running she will generate more than enough good press for the UP to make them very pleased with their investment. Hope they'll give her a full tonnage train one day and show the world how she and her sisters helped us win WW II and kept the nation moving towards victory in the steam era.

Where will we find you on May 10, 2019? 

I'm hoping to be part of the 150^th anniversary of the Golden Spike celebration on May 10, 2019, and my dream is to be as near to the 4014 as possible. You know, the linking of America by rail on May 10,1869 is one of the greatest under told stories of our nations growth as before that momentous day it took months and months to get across this vast continent and fully 40 percent of all who tried never made it. If the weather didn't get them, disease, hostiles, and other hazards did. On May 11th. 1869 you could safely go from the East Coast to the West Coast in a predictable 10 days and 11 nights and know you'd arrive in one piece. That changed everything. It allowed the industrial revolution to expand as you could now safely ship vast quantities of heavy things (coal, iron ore, steel, iron etc.) long distances economically and thanks to immigrant incentive programs sponsored by the railroads it facilitated the pioneers who settled the vast great plains, making America the bread basket of the world. It's a great story and I'm confident that between the UP's excellent PR department and Ed Dicken's soon to come alive Big Boy it will get the national coverage it deserves.

Is there are diesel locomotive past or present that comes close to matching the personality of steam? 

The only diesels I ever liked some were the FM Trainmasters. I liked the sound they made and how they looked. However, compared to any steam engine no diesel could come close in my heart.

My friends, it’s time to party like it’s 1869 — a year from now. I’m here to share exciting news about how Trains magazine will celebrate the 150^th anniversary of America’s first transcontinental railroad and the return of Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 Big Boy steam locomotive No. 4014. We’re busy preparing special publications, videos, and today we’re launching two new blogs, and announcing a tour you can participate in that captures the “Journey to Promontory” spirit as this special project is known.

It’s an important anniversary and one that should not go unrecognized by anyone who proclaims an interest in American railroading. The completion of the first transcontinental railroad is one of the most important events in railroad history and in American history. We want to celebrate this accomplishment and bring new understanding of just how incredible this feat was a century and a half ago and how it remains so today.

The magazine will publish a special issue “Journey to Promontory” in January 2019 and offer a special commemorative issue of Trains in May 2019. Both will be packed with stories, photos, and maps to tell the story of the transcontinental railroad as well as the Union Pacific Railroad of today. Each issue of Trains in the first half of 2019 will cover additional aspects of the work and stories will also feature each of the transcons that followed: Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Milwaukee Road. Promontory is the northern Utah location where the railroad was completed, and a ceremonial Golden Spike ceremony took place on May 10, 1869. Today it is a National Park Service site, where replicas and re-enactors tell the story of the coming of the railroad. 

Earlier this year, Trains announced a partnership with famed railroad documentary film producer Rich Luckin to create a 1-hour made-for-PBS historical documentary “Journey to Promontory” that will be available this fall. In addition, Trains and noted railroad videographer Kevin Gilliam will partner to make a follow up video showing the Transcontinental railroad today as a major economic artery between Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Sacramento, Calif. Both will be available for purchase at www.kalmbachhobbystore.com.

On the www.TrainsMag.com website, look for two new blogs. One will cover the transcon and the other the history of the Big Boy locomotive. Historian John Hankey launches a regular blog post today about the birth and constriction of the railroad, leading to the Golden Spike ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah. UP steam expert John Bush will share his insights and observations into the history of the amazing 4-8-8-4 locomotives that once ruled the mainline in Utah and Wyoming. Find the new blogs here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/journey-to-promontory/archive/2018/05/10/the-significance-of-the-transcontinental-railroad.aspx

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/big-boy-blog/archive/2018/05/10/the-history-of-the-big-boy-locomotive-part-1.aspx
 

As they said in advertising: But wait! There’s more!

In order to bring railroad history to life, Trains and Special Interest Tours will offer a unique Journey to Promontory tour May 5 to May 14, 2019 that will cover the route from Sacramento to Council Bluffs, stopping at significant sites, and making sure to be at Promontory on May 10, 2019. Among the highlights will be the use of private dome and sleeper cars on a portion of the route covered by Amtrak’s California Zephyr passenger train.

Details: www.specialinteresttours.com

So, with that, we invite all of our readers and friends to join us for this once-in-a-lifetime event, whether it’s in person, online or in our pages. And keep checking back: Additional events, website offerings, new products, and special issue and DVD coverage of Big Boy No. 4014 back in steam will be announced later. We hope to see many of you in the Utah desert next May.

For today, enjoy No. 149.

This week, the wedding of Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markel has the United Kingdom in the celebrity spotlight. Expect to be bombarded with coverage and all sorts of references to England and British culture. It got started over the weekend when CBS’ Sunday Morning show, focused on the UK. It all reminds me what a paradise for steam locomotive lovers this country is. Their trains may look different and wear bright colors that many American fans might find objectionable, but as my friend Wayne Laepple says, “They still make all the right smells and sounds.” Indeed, they do.

I learned that during a three-week trip to the UK with friends from the Pacific Locomotive Association back in 2008. We had a fantastic time, covering the country in a whirlwind tour with renowned guide Geoff Cooke. We hit all of the high spots from the Blue Bell and the North Yorkshire Moors to the fabulous museum in York, and my friend Adrian Brodie even booked me on a main line steam trip from London to Worcester where we rolled off mile after mile at 80 mph. I saw the brand new 4-6-2 Tornado. I came away impressed and wrote about the experience in our May 2009 edition. I also promised to return soon and often. Sadly, because of other obligations, I have done neither. But the intent is still there.

I got another reminder of how good the UK steam scene is when the recent Center for Railroad Photography and art “Conversations” event in Lake Forest, Ill., featured the masterful British steam railway photography of Robin Coombes. It was not photography from the past but of steam trains running today on excursions and on demonstration railways throughout the land. The images are bold, imaginative, and inspirational. They look like Robin has figured out time travel with his camera gear. But they are of today’s preservation scene. I highly recommend them.

So, if you get bored this week with all of the fuss about the royal wedding, ponder this fact that Robin tossed out when he was giving his program. The UK, which is about half the size of California, has about 1,000 active steam locomotives. Now consider this, by my own counts, the U.S. has in the course of a year, about 190 operating steam locomotives. In a year when many of my fellow steam fans are disappointed in Amtrak's decision not to operate special trains that means many of our mainline favorites will be sidelined or severely restricted in their operations. It's enough to make you want to take a trip to England to see for yourself. I hope you do.

I just returned from a few days back home in North Carolina. Even though I have lived in Wisconsin, where Trains is published, for almost 14 years, the Tar Heel State will always be home. It’s the land of great barbecue, pine forests, and a place where, to my southern ear, people don’t have an accent. Let me tell you about my visit.

The main purpose of my trip was to attend a joint meeting of the Norfolk & Western Historical Society, the Southern Railway Historical Association, and the old Norfolk Southern Railway Historical Society in Salisbury. It was a great chance to see old friends and make new ones as well. And they were kind to me Saturday night when I gave a program about the top 10 news stories we’re following at Trains and a look back at how bad of a photographer I was in 1978 when I had my first good 35mm camera. I appreciate their indulgence.

While I was back home I visited a couple of favorite short lines, the Alexander Railroad and the Aberdeen Carolina & Western. The Alexander is famous for running end-cab Alco switchers for years in an attractive green and yellow paint scheme that went with the line’s nickname, the Junebug. Today, the railroad moves freight with a black SW1500 that came off Southern Pacific, and business is good. I saw industrial spurs all along the line. Business is also good on the AC&W, which I wrote about in our June 2017 issue. Unit grain trains still make their way off CSX and Norfolk Southern to the chicken feed plants in Candor. I watched an empty one of these with NS power on the beautiful welded rail and deep ballast that is on the railroad’s main line. I also observed an amazing parking lot of 43 former CSX high horsepower GEs that are now the property of Progress Rail. The AC&W is putting them into service, and they will go into lease service at Union Pacific. The railroad is also upgrading its own motive power fleet with SD60s from Canadian National that should be arriving soon.

I also spent a good amount of time at the North Carolina Transportation Museum at the Southern Railway shop complex in Spencer. This has been my home base for volunteer work for the last 32 years. While I was there I filmed a video tour of some highlights that we will have for you at trainsmag.com later. I also meandered the grounds, enjoying the sight of many improvements, many opportunities, and many friends. Among the rolling stock on display is Graham County Railroad Shay No. 1925, which is an engine that played a central role in cementing my relationship to railroading between ages 12 and 14. I was part of the team that restored the engine to operation in 1997, and I hope to see it back in service again one day. To me, it’s a very special locomotive and it carries with it many good memories and friendships for 45 years.

I also got to see N&W 4-8-4 No. 611, which is receiving 300 new staybolts and piston work as part of its 2018 maintenance. Scott Lindsay, who is in charge of the locomotive, told me more about the work in a video we’ll share with you here soon. It’s great to see this powerful machine getting attention that will keep it safe and reliable for years to come.

The museum repainted GP9 No. 620 just in time for the historical society meeting. No. 620 was always a freight engine for N&W, but it got to wear Tuscan red passenger colors in 1989 after NS Chairman Bob Claytor donated the paint. I was part of the crew that painted the engine that year. It must have been really good paint or a really good paint job to have lasted 29 years!

Boy, was I wrong about GE Transportation.

GE and Wabtec officials announced today that they'll combine their companies but keep divisional headquarters in Chicago and Wilmerding, Pa. And it all makes sense.

For years, I harangued GE Transportation media people about driverless trains, automation, and artificial intelligence. Early on, they politely responded with additional information on their latest products.

Deep down, I knew services to railroads or locomotive owners would be a bigger deal than the locomotives themselves. But when it came to conjuring what combinations GE Transportation could make with other larger corporations, I put Caterpillar and John Deere up there, instead of Wabtec.

Wabtec already makes what you could call the best-selling positive train control software in the world, the Interoperable- Electronic Train Management System, used by all Class I railroads, Chicago's Metra, and others. Wabtec still makes air brake systems and parts for locomotives and freight cars, not to mention systems and components for transit and commuter railroads. GE has been analyzing locomotives remotely for at least two decades, long before Trip Optimizer and GE Digital — which are both fully immersed in locomotives. 

According to a GE news release this morning, the combined company will generate about $8 billion in annual revenue and have nearly 30,000 employees world wide, essentially doubling the size of either company. More details are coming, but I can't wait to see the benefits a combined company will mean.

There's an element of dedication required to master any craft. Trains Magazine columnist Brian Solomon's dedication shows with his daily railroad photography blog, Tracking the Light. Yes, that means every day. For those inclined to learn, Brian takes the time to talk about the choices that he made to record these images. For those looking for lots of great railroad photos, and maybe a lunchtime diversion each day, the site offers that, too.

Solomon launched the blog in 2012, and made it daily in early 2013. He says it has accrued more than 2,250 posts in that timeframe, an impressive feat for a photographer in any field.

The blog isn't his only creative outlet, though. Solomon has more than 60 books to his credit, many of which feature his photography. He also has dozens of published feature articles, including two in the July 2018 issue of Trains. Regular readers may also remember his recurring photography column in the magazine, "Adventures in Railroad Photography," co-authored with Mel Patrick, that ran in the late 1990s. The teaching spirit of that column is very much alive in Tracking the Light today.

Solomon says there are many challenges in producing the daily blog. Among them, revealing the real techniques that will help readers make better photos, keeping the readers interested in railroad photography, and simply making sure to have a post each and every day.

On the horizon for summer are a review of his archival images, to see how they've held up (photographically) through the years; discussions on photographing in summer and scanning techniques; continuing his 20-year Irish retrospective focusing on Irish Rail’s 201 class General Motors-built diesels; and previews of his new book, Brian Solomon's Railway Guide to Europe, available now from Kalmbach Books.

Michigan’s Henry Ford museum and its sister attraction, Greenfield Village, rarely hit in the top 10 of must see places for those of us who appreciate railroad history. But they should be. The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village, are among the great institutions of American history. A recent visit to Dearborn in suburban Detroit, my first in 10 years, reinforced this notion.

Far from a car museum and a collection of old buildings, they’re a lively look at how America moves, innovates, and changes. Along with a recreation of Edison’s lab and the Wright Brothers bicycle store, you’ll see (and can sit in the back of) the Rosa Parks bus, Charles Kuralt’s On the Road motorhome, and the limousine that President John F. Kennedy was riding in that awful November 1963 day in Dallas. There are farming implements, an Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, and a Ford Model T broken down into elemental parts. There are airplanes (don’t forget the Ford Tri-Motor). The weekend we visited was a Civil War living history re-enactment, complete with an artillery demonstration in an open area. In the summer, antique baseball teams takes to the field. This summary hits just a few significant items. There’s more here than you could see in a week. It is American history on full display.

In such a place, railroads have to play a big role, and they do.

The moment you enter Greenfield Village, before you do anything else, you’re confronted with a set of standard gauge tracks with a wig wag signal guarding the crossing and a standpipe from the legendary Kentucky & Tennessee nearby.

A few paces away is a working roundhouse replicated from the original 1884 structure at Marshall, Mich., on the Detroit, Toledo & Milwaukee Railroad. Beyond the Armstrong turntable, you’ll find the roundhouse, where the engines are maintained and rebuilt. During our late May visit, a new tender tank had been riveted together for one of the inhabitants and was ready to go into service.

Nearby is a 50-ton coal tower, four years old, that is used daily for its original purpose. Outside of the one in Chama, N.M., that sees occasional demonstrations, I cannot think of another coaling tower in this land that fulfills its mission to feed its charges.

The operating locomotive roster is impressive: 1873 Torch Lake, an 0-6-4 that is the oldest operating locomotive in America on a regular basis now that B&O Railroad Museum’s William Mason (1856) is out of service. Detroit Lima & Northern 4-4-0 No. 7, put into service a few years ago, represents the classic American type of the Gilded Age. Even the Edison, an 0-4-0T that was heavily modified to become a 4-4-0, is agreeable to the sights and sounds. How many places in America do you know that fields three operating locomotives? Not many. But here’s one.

About the only thing that does not feel right are the open bench seat coaches, made to easily accommodate the masses on a train ride on a 3-mile loop around the village. They’re better suited to a Six Flags amusement park, but they do they job and they’re at least in muted colors so as to not attract attention.  

Inside the Henry Ford, railroads have a place, as well. Overwhelming everything is Chesapeake & Ohio No. 1601, one of two 2-6-6-6 Alleghany types left. This 1941 giant is a favorite for just about everyone passing by who feels the need for a photo of himself or herself standing on the front footboard of this monster from the mountains of West Virginia. The cab is open as well. There’s also a replica of the DeWitt Clinton and train, a wedge snowplow, a caboose, Henry Ford’s 1920 heavyweight office car, and a 1926 Ingersoll-Rand boxcab diesel, among the first of its kind.

I could go on about this place, but you get the point. Plan a visit here. Set aside at least two days. More if you can. Prepare to be overwhelmed. You’ll be happy you did.