#630 Southern ALCO Consolidation 2-8-0 March 2013

[SargNickFury]

109 years old and still a SEXY BEAST!

#630 is Chattanooga Tennessee's steamy lady of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, Took her from Chattanooga to Attalla Alabama on the 21st Century Steam tour...

The dates, many are sold out, but loco chasing is free!

•March 2 ~ Chattanooga to Attalla
•March 9 ~ Bristol to Radford
•March 10 ~ Bristol to Bulls Gap
•March 16 ~ Roanoke to Walton & Lynchburg
•March 23 ~ Norfolk to Petersburg
•April 13 ~ Spencer to Barber Junction
•April 20 & 21 ~ Asheville to Old Fort


Click on them for the high resolution versions

[SargNickFury]

[Noel]

So 630 is going to be in Spencer on April 13? Ill have to go and be there.

[Griphos]

Man!! That IS a beaut!!!

[SargNickFury]

Wait till you hear her....working on the video now... though Youtube must be near full as well and will be more so for this outing in days to come, HD cameras were set up everywhere at crossings and we were steadily chased by same cars from Chattanooga to Attalla....I have no idea how they keep up, and not kill themselves or someone else.....they were truckin down the side roads recording us all the way.

[mapitts]

I have driven a lot of miles on US 11 doing just that. Glad you had a good time! At least you rode the nice portion between Chattanooga and Attlala. I hated the trip from Attlala to B'ham.

[SargNickFury]

I wouldn't have mind riding further in any direction she wanted to take me.

Well My vdeo deshaker has decided to refuse to work with my newer and faster CPU.....(grr that's it Mercalli you are done!) So I just uploaded my raw shakey cam footage to you tube, and am letting it process for shakiness...how bad could it be? Yeah This may not stay 1080p quality for long, but shakey as it is it's 1080p.

At 4:00 just pure audio delight.... up it to hd. This is at the end of the day after the run, she's getting ready to go back to her shed and go to bed, but with the snow falling, and her looking like that I just had to stay a bit longer and grab this video. Wife and baby just had to wait freezing in the car a bit...

[bpetit]

Wait till you hear her....working on the video now... though Youtube must be near full as well and will be more so for this outing in days to come, HD cameras were set up everywhere at crossings and we were steadily chased by same cars from Chattanooga to Attalla....I have no idea how they keep up, and not kill themselves or someone else.....they were truckin down the side roads recording us all the way.

Not to mention the speeding tickets Those guys are determined bunch but most just like to give chase.

[SargNickFury]

Also saw this up, someone beat me to youtube. Looks like Fort Payne maybe. heheh looks like his mike and pod were not up to being that close. We were trucking pretty good there....

[mapitts]

Did TVRM buy NS's old HEP car?

[SargNickFury]

Which car is that? This was Sponsered by NS, TVRM does not own all the cars, and several I heard them say were on loan JUST for this 21st Century Steam circuit.

[mapitts]

In your video it is the headend car on the shove back. Saw a lot of cars in your pics that belonged to other museums. In 1992 most of what I saw had been converted to HEP per NS's request. 480 volt.

[mapitts]

I went back and looked at your pics and your video. It is not the "big" NS HEP car. Unless they put windows in it. You can see that it is not the old car in one of your pics. A brakeman is riding in the vestibule to a coupling in it. I did see Sid Bailey's N&W tool car though. When NS did away with each car having it's own genrator & A/C they came up with it for HEP. It contained a 6V71 & a 12V71 Detroit. Steam heat was still used. It was built in Birmingham from what I never did really find out. I always hated working excursions then. Each car with it's own generator took all night before the excursion to fuel up, run, test load, and see if the A/C was working. Heat was brought up in the morings as they built enough to run steam through the coils. Who turned off the steam coils to this car? Why? Old the good old days!! Hated two day trips, because you came back in at 3:30 and started the whole thing over. Then there were the toilets.....Showing my age with the excursion program. When NS came up with the HEP car and mandates it made my life and a couple of others that I worked with a dream.

[SargNickFury]

You talking about the silver "easy bake oven" can that the breakman is on stairs? That is a passenger car, or the one right behind him? #50 "Emporium"? That's their mobile giftshop car. Has a little fast food service area on it, and a shop with various railfan items, regular tourist type gifts and plenty of toys. The windows are only on ine side of it. The rest of the cars are all passenger cars or dining cars. Save the one it shows at the very end in my video which is the tool car, that has their supplies. these cars are in reverse order from when they were on the trip. The locomotives were attached at the other end where the tool car is. I say locomotives, because the two GP40's were between her and the tool car. She doesn't need tehmuscle, but because of a previous steam trip where #630 broke down due to lubricant issue that has been resolved, she held up a mainline for many hours. As a result for her to get out on mainlines I think they are required to have some deisel, and the added dynamic breaks are a big help. Have feeling though all that seperation makes steam hook up not practical.

This is their tool car (may be a better name for it)
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/192/ ... aatall.jpg

This is the gift shop car.
http://imageshack.us/a/img32/192/630201 ... aatall.jpg

I am not sure how the cars are powered to be honest. I know a few of them seemed to have their own generators, as it sounded like a propane generator or something was running under the cars. You have far more knowledge then I on this. I've never worked in Railroading, just a fan.

[SargNickFury]

Wait, you meant this one right? When you mentioned breakman I thought you meant in video. NS 42..... it's a loaner.

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1638/6 ... atalla.jpg


I found this on it. With and older pic before it was refurbed.

Description: NS 42 is one of six former CDot/PAT coaches overhauled for steam program use. This car is now in service but this photo shows it in progress.

http://www.altoonaworks.info/pics/ocs.html