Steam Panorama
For today's Steam Sunday here's a wide panoramic take on this scene that I lke from my second visit to New England's own Steam Mecca this past holiday season. It's a bit of a tradition to meet my Dad and step mom at the historic Griswold Inn for lunch and hot buttered rums and since we hadn't done that yet this year another visit to the lower Connecticut River valley was in order. As a nice bonus the weather was cold and clear with a light dusting of snow, perfect conditions for another try at shooting some steam after being skunked by engine problems a month prior.
For five weeks before Christmas the Valley Railroad (dba Essex Steam Train and Riverboat) runs an astonishing amount of holiday trains branded as the North Pole Express. Most are steam powered and this requires all three of their steam locomotives to be under steam at once. Excepting the Strasburg Railroad I don't believe there is anywhere else in the United States where three standard gauge rod connected locomotives are regularly under steam at the same time. But here, every weekend, it is a normal occurrence as the railroad runs 13 sold out departures between 2 and 8 PM every Sat and Sun (only 9 on Tue-Fri) using four consists one of which is led by one of the road's center cab GEs.
Here's Valley Railroad 2-8-2 'Mikado' New Haven 3025 leading the 2:30 PM train to the North Pole just a few minutes out of the station putting on a grand show thru the open field near MP 4.5 on the old New Haven Valley Line north of the bridge over the Falls River.
3025 is China Railways SY class built new in 1989 by the Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works for Pennsylvania's Knox & Kane Railroad where it spent its life until that railroad's demise following the collapse of that lines signature attraction, the Kinzua Viaduct. It was purchased by the VRR in 2008 and was rebuilt as a functional replica of a New Haven J-1 'Mikado' locomotive like the type that once plied this line in local service and re-numbered 3025, one number above the last of the original class on the NYNH&H.
Information above courtesy of the Valley Railroad web site and more history can be found here: essexsteamtrain.com/about/history/
Essex, Connecticut
Saturday December 21, 2024
Steam Panorama
For today's Steam Sunday here's a wide panoramic take on this scene that I lke from my second visit to New England's own Steam Mecca this past holiday season. It's a bit of a tradition to meet my Dad and step mom at the historic Griswold Inn for lunch and hot buttered rums and since we hadn't done that yet this year another visit to the lower Connecticut River valley was in order. As a nice bonus the weather was cold and clear with a light dusting of snow, perfect conditions for another try at shooting some steam after being skunked by engine problems a month prior.
For five weeks before Christmas the Valley Railroad (dba Essex Steam Train and Riverboat) runs an astonishing amount of holiday trains branded as the North Pole Express. Most are steam powered and this requires all three of their steam locomotives to be under steam at once. Excepting the Strasburg Railroad I don't believe there is anywhere else in the United States where three standard gauge rod connected locomotives are regularly under steam at the same time. But here, every weekend, it is a normal occurrence as the railroad runs 13 sold out departures between 2 and 8 PM every Sat and Sun (only 9 on Tue-Fri) using four consists one of which is led by one of the road's center cab GEs.
Here's Valley Railroad 2-8-2 'Mikado' New Haven 3025 leading the 2:30 PM train to the North Pole just a few minutes out of the station putting on a grand show thru the open field near MP 4.5 on the old New Haven Valley Line north of the bridge over the Falls River.
3025 is China Railways SY class built new in 1989 by the Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works for Pennsylvania's Knox & Kane Railroad where it spent its life until that railroad's demise following the collapse of that lines signature attraction, the Kinzua Viaduct. It was purchased by the VRR in 2008 and was rebuilt as a functional replica of a New Haven J-1 'Mikado' locomotive like the type that once plied this line in local service and re-numbered 3025, one number above the last of the original class on the NYNH&H.
Information above courtesy of the Valley Railroad web site and more history can be found here: essexsteamtrain.com/about/history/
Essex, Connecticut
Saturday December 21, 2024