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Clean stack through Centerbrook

The steam crews on Connecticut's Valley Railroad strive to fire their locomotives as cleanly as possible. After all, they have lots of sensitive neighbors all along the line, including private residences, and marinas, where expensive yacht owners don't want their white sails stained by soot and cinders. The railroad provides very detailed instruction to their fireman as to where they can fire and where they absolutely must be clean stack. They also have experimented with a variety of coal types, including mixes of both bituminous (soft) and anthracite (hard) coal. In this scene, Consolidation #97, a 1926-vintage Alco product, takes a short excursion consist through the meadow in Centerbrook, just north of the Essex Station at roughly Milepost 4.4, en route to Deep River on a late October afternoon. This train was performing for a 2024 Dak Dillon Photography charter, and the crew was actually trying to make some smoke for us, albeit unsuccessfully.

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Uploaded on November 19, 2024
Taken on October 9, 2024