SDCFans - The Unofficial Fan Site For Silver Dollar City
Silver Dollar City & Celebration City Discussion => Construction/Rumors => Topic started by: sdcfan88 on May 22, 2016, 04:08:22 PM
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Silver Dollar City has received some new steam engines. Makes me wonder if they are gonna build a new railway or expand the existing one somehow.
(http://stmedia.stimg.co/ows_146386483320956.jpg?w=525)
STORY HERE:
http://www.startribune.com/steam-engines-that-gave-children-rides-sold-to-theme-park/380374971/
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Oh thank goodness this story finally broke - been sitting on this for awhile. The first engine (504) arrived Thursday and is on the backlot. The park also bought narrow gauge track - not sure what the long term plans for it is though
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This is an interesting and unexpected development to say the least. I assume that's where some of the projected 40 million investment went. I did not think they would be doing two projects simultaneously. Between the two projects this is definitely looking like the largest overall expansion project for the park to date.
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I wouldn't expect them to change the track at all. I would guess this might give them the ability to run three trains with a shortened or eliminated show. They also might just simply have taken the opportunity to "stock up" since WWII narrow gage steam engines don't come around every day.
Lots and lots of history behind these engines, just like the others at SDC. I'd like to see the park make a bigger deal about the engines themselves, but then they'd probably get people mad that they aren't in a museum. It's unfortunate that the guy who had them passed away, it sounds like he had an amazing setup that is being torn apart.
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A few thoughts about this. 1) I wonder what they will number them? 2) 1 must already have arrived in PA for rebuild. I wonder who would be doing that? (sarcastic) 3) Why would they need so many engines now? They already have a spare. 4) Why buy the track also? If they bought it all, what did the article say? A little over a mile? I am guessing they are panels. 5) Why? I mean this must surely be a large expenditure even if they got a good deal. And then to spend the money to completely rebuild one for next year. Someone correct me if I am wrong but that means they will have 3 basically completely rebuilt engines? Don't get me wrong, I am a rail fan and I love the FSDL. I just feel for them to do this must mean they have some serious plans in the future regarding expansion. Again, someone correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe their will ever be a way for them to completely eliminate the robbery due to the track grading. Still, I am very excited about the investment they are putting into SDC with this.
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1. I imagine the engine called 504 will remain as such.
2. No idea.
3. A spare. If they run 3 trains daily you'll need more than just 2.
4. Obviously some reconfiguration will need to occur at the round house to house 5 engines.
5. Who says they'll all stay at SDC? Some could go to Wild Adventures or Stone Mountain
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That's pretty cool they're from Northfield, MN: home of the James/Younger Gang's last hurrah at the Northfield National Bank therefore providing another link to Missouri.
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A great bit of news! I have noticed the longer lines the last few years at the train, so perhaps they will run a third train on busy days. I am not sure they have enough property to extend the track, but we will see.
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Would they ever think about putting in another train ride on the opposite side of the park to help relieve the crowds for the current one (especially during OTC)? I wouldn't think so. I'm not sure if they would be willing to dedicate more of the park space to do something like that or commit to the extra staff it would take to run it but could it be a possibility? I defer this question to those of you who are way more knowledgeable of SDC and how theme parks work.
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I wouldn't mind a 2nd train to be used as a shuttle railway format to supplement the Trams and Buses getting to and from the parking lot. Or an even more ambitious idea would be to use part of the old CC site as a station/roundhouse for a mountainside train journey from the park to Branson. But the latter would likely be a cost prohibitive maintenance nightmare as I have gathered these engines don't handle hills all too well.
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These are DOCK locomotives. They were used by the Nazis in WWII to help with moving items on the docks, which is why they are narrow gauge. They were never intended to be used in a steep grade environment.
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Now, all they need to do is build a period style roundhouse with a turn table, so that the whole train maintenance area can be in plain sight and an attraction to itself.
(https://railtown1897.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/roundhouse-300_8879-web.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Круглое_депо._Схема_0248.jpg/220px-Круглое_депо._Схема_0248.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Baltimore_%26_Ohio_Railroad,_Martinsburg_West_Roundhouse,_East_End_of_Race_%26_Martin_Streets,_Martinsburg_(Berkeley_County,_West_Virginia).jpg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/93JC0Tab70k/maxresdefault.jpg)
In action:
http://youtu.be/93JC0Tab70k
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^I'm going to laugh if they do someday build a roundhouse. They'd owe you a fee at this point for all the times you've pushed the idea. It's definitely a good one, but impractical for them to accomplish until they are ready to completely re-arrange the entire maintenance area of the park.
There's no way they will add a second train ride anywhere in the park (unless they added a little kiddie train at some point). The current train ride is a huge logistical operation all on it's own. Not to mention all the land it takes.
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^I'm going to laugh if they do someday build a roundhouse. They'd owe you a fee at this point for all the times you've pushed the idea. It's definitely a good one, but impractical for them to accomplish until they are ready to completely re-arrange the entire maintenance area of the park.
There's no way they will add a second train ride anywhere in the park (unless they added a little kiddie train at some point). The current train ride is a huge logistical operation all on it's own. Not to mention all the land it takes.
It would save them a ton of space.
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If they ever build an on-site resort, it would be a cool feature to transport guests to and from the City via steam train...SDC's version of Disney's monorail.
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Building a roundhouse would be a really nice idea. Especially if they built it so that it would be open to the "public". Did they only get the engines and some track or did they also pick up any of the narrow gauge cars?
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Here is an archived article on the FSDL railway for those who missed it. http://sdcfans.com/sdc-wiki/sdc-rides/sdc-other-rides/frisco-silver-dollar-line-steam-train/
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Anyone been to The City and gotten a photo and / or video of the engine already on property?
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I thought I had a shot of it, but the train cars were blocking the view. You have to look fast as you are passing the roundhouse and be sitting on the station side of the train. It's behind all the passenger cars on the far track. It has a yellowish body with a kind of plain metal siding. I'm fairly certain that's one of the new ones at least from the description that was given to me. At one point they were putting plainer, more modern steel bodies on these steam engines just before the advent of more conventional engines.
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I thought I had a shot of it, but the train cars were blocking the view. You have to look fast as you are passing the roundhouse and be sitting on the station side of the train. It's behind all the passenger cars on the far track. It has a yellowish body with a kind of plain metal siding. I'm fairly certain that's one of the new ones at least from the description that was given to me. At one point they were putting plainer, more modern steel bodies on these steam engines just before the advent of more conventional engines.
No. That's not it. It is black and it is sitting on the backlot. Since that's not a public area obviously photos of it cannot be posted.
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Wow....big ideas for train upgrades....
I'm guessing they are just buying backup trains (for SDC and other HFE parks) and the extra track could be used as 'spare parts' for our current track (or other parks). I can't see them extending the current layout being extended any without some major investments in earthmoving and/or infrastructure changes. Probably why it was announced because nothing is really going to change about the current track.
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Is there enough room to make a longer ride? Can we get a new show too?
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I hope so
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Well according to my sources. The new engine numbers will be 504 and 14. The story of 504's numbering is the fact the person who owned the engine before SDC did loved that number and had the park agree to keep that number on it when they bought it. As for engine 14 the serial number on the engine is just 1 higher than 13 so because of this they are giving it the next number in line which is 14.
All this time I thought that they would keep with going with area highway numbers. I thought the engines would had been numbered 65 and 413. But nope they're going with the other numbers.
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New to the forums here, but certainly not new to SDC. Worked on the train itself for several years up until fairly recently, and probably robbed a few of you there. ;D
I did have to comment on a couple of things here:
3. A spare. If they run 3 trains daily you'll need more than just 2.
4. Obviously some reconfiguration will need to occur at the round house to house 5 engines.
5. Who says they'll all stay at SDC? Some could go to Wild Adventures or Stone Mountain
First, these engines are pretty much duplicates of the engines that they already have at SDC. They are a rare, rather unique engine type. They actually first started bidding and negotiating on these over 2 years ago when they weren't sure if they were going to get 76 up and running again or if they were going to do the massive overhaul and rebuild that they ended up doing.
One of the three engines that they got (yes, there are actually 3) is no longer working and will be used exclusively for parts. There is/was debate on another one of the engines as to whether they will use it for parts or or rebuild it to use in the park. There is at least one engine they are committed to reworking a bit to be used in the park on at least a semi-regular basis.
I highly doubt that they would move any of them to another park for the simple reason that the only park in the world that runs these particular types of engines is SDC, and the guys that work there know these engines inside and out.
Last, as for the number of trains they run. The ONLY time they run 2 trains is during Christmas. Period. There was a time in the long ago past that they would run 2 in summer, but that was in the days of the robber shack being where the Barn Swing is now. The park is no longer willing (and I'm not sure that it's able) to provide the massive amount of extra staffing it would require to run 2 trains in the summer, nor are the crowds really worth it except for a couple of days a year. Even running one train on a 20 minute schedule you'll almost never wait more than one train to get a ride.
To add a second train would require adding at least one more conductor, one more engineer (and really it would need to be 2 of each for breaks) and at least one or two more robbers, who are already crowded in their shack between trains. (and trust me, right now they don't have the staffing to even think about that, and haven't in a long time) This doesn't even think about needing to add microphone packs, chopping a short show down a couple of minutes more to make it fit the time schedules, added upkeep costs on the engines and cars, so forth. I won't even get into all of the safety procedures that would come up in summer, as there are some different procedures used at Christmas that you wouldn't be aware of unless you work on the train.
Plus there's the rather obvious fact that while they might have 5 engines (3 of which are ready to run) there are only 2 sets of passenger cars that can carry people. One set being the new cars they started building in 2011 and just recently finished and one set of old cars. The other old cars they replaced were all scrapped (notice at the wreck- that's one of them).
So the idea of three trains being on those tracks at the same time is, quite simply, never going to happen (unless the park is closed and the engineers are having some fun or doing safety/ maintenance checks)
Anyways, hope that helps give y'all a bit of info about what may or may not happen with those and changes it might make to the train.
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Thanks for the info and welcome to the site, Sirwillow! If you robbed us as Alphie then thank you for the entertaining show. If you robbed us as Ralphie then I'll repeat this conversation but slower- LOL
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New to the forums here, but certainly not new to SDC. Worked on the train itself for several years up until fairly recently, and probably robbed a few of you there. ;D
I did have to comment on a couple of things here:
3. A spare. If they run 3 trains daily you'll need more than just 2.
4. Obviously some reconfiguration will need to occur at the round house to house 5 engines.
5. Who says they'll all stay at SDC? Some could go to Wild Adventures or Stone Mountain
First, these engines are pretty much duplicates of the engines that they already have at SDC. They are a rare, rather unique engine type. They actually first started bidding and negotiating on these over 2 years ago when they weren't sure if they were going to get 76 up and running again or if they were going to do the massive overhaul and rebuild that they ended up doing.
One of the three engines that they got (yes, there are actually 3) is no longer working and will be used exclusively for parts. There is/was debate on another one of the engines as to whether they will use it for parts or or rebuild it to use in the park. There is at least one engine they are committed to reworking a bit to be used in the park on at least a semi-regular basis.
I highly doubt that they would move any of them to another park for the simple reason that the only park in the world that runs these particular types of engines is SDC, and the guys that work there know these engines inside and out.
Last, as for the number of trains they run. The ONLY time they run 2 trains is during Christmas. Period. There was a time in the long ago past that they would run 2 in summer, but that was in the days of the robber shack being where the Barn Swing is now. The park is no longer willing (and I'm not sure that it's able) to provide the massive amount of extra staffing it would require to run 2 trains in the summer, nor are the crowds really worth it except for a couple of days a year. Even running one train on a 20 minute schedule you'll almost never wait more than one train to get a ride.
To add a second train would require adding at least one more conductor, one more engineer (and really it would need to be 2 of each for breaks) and at least one or two more robbers, who are already crowded in their shack between trains. (and trust me, right now they don't have the staffing to even think about that, and haven't in a long time) This doesn't even think about needing to add microphone packs, chopping a short show down a couple of minutes more to make it fit the time schedules, added upkeep costs on the engines and cars, so forth. I won't even get into all of the safety procedures that would come up in summer, as there are some different procedures used at Christmas that you wouldn't be aware of unless you work on the train.
Plus there's the rather obvious fact that while they might have 5 engines (3 of which are ready to run) there are only 2 sets of passenger cars that can carry people. One set being the new cars they started building in 2011 and just recently finished and one set of old cars. The other old cars they replaced were all scrapped (notice at the wreck- that's one of them).
So the idea of three trains being on those tracks at the same time is, quite simply, never going to happen (unless the park is closed and the engineers are having some fun or doing safety/ maintenance checks)
Anyways, hope that helps give y'all a bit of info about what may or may not happen with those and changes it might make to the train.
Still think the park needs a more authentic period roundhouse with turntable and viewing area for patrons to see any work being done for as part of the working city aspect of SDC.
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Still think the park needs a more authentic period roundhouse with turntable and viewing area for patrons to see any work being done for as part of the working city aspect of SDC.
There are a lot of people that would agree with you. But they'll never spend the money on it, especially on something that they don't see as bringing in any money. There also isn't any other parks that have their round houses open for tourists (with a slight exception of Disney World which has an expensive private tour you can pay for), so I doubt it would ever be opened up like that. I don't know that insurance would like that either. Besides the round house is fairly quiet during the day since the engineers are on the train. :)
It's a neat idea, one that I think would be great if it would actually happen, but I'm not optimistic for it.
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If they ever build an on-site resort, it would be a cool feature to transport guests to and from the City via steam train...SDC's version of Disney's monorail.
That's an awesome idea...or build a track that could make stops by the Wilderness and Deer Run to replace the buses
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The issue is that these were built for dock use in WWII. They really were not designed to transverse difficult/steep terrain and that's what you'd get into going that.
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Heard employees say the track is to replace the track that is starting to get old now. Others say we may be sending trains to Branson as another form of transportation, besides the 1 road that leads here.
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Heard employees say the track is to replace the track that is starting to get old now. Others say we may be sending trains to Branson as another form of transportation, besides the 1 road that leads here.
Do you know when someone is pulling your chain? Those engines would never be able to make the trip between Branson and SDC. They are not designed for it. They cannot even make the park loop without stopping to get a new head of steam pressure.
I am not saying that another form of transportation might be in store for the future. But it will not be these engines.
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Heard employees say the track is to replace the track that is starting to get old now. Others say we may be sending trains to Branson as another form of transportation, besides the 1 road that leads here.
Do you know when someone is pulling your chain? Those engines would never be able to make the trip between Branson and SDC. They are not designed for it. They cannot even make the park loop without stopping to get a new head of steam pressure.
I am not saying that another form of transportation might be in store for the future. But it will not be these engines.
Almost completely agreed. The Branson to Silver Dollar City train is a long rumored thing that has little chance of actually happening. It wouldn't be worth the millions upon millions that it would cost to build it- far more than any roller coaster, and the staffing costs.... Would it be nice? Sure. Would it be feasible? Nope.
Oh, one small correction. The trains actually no longer need to stop where the robbery is to build a head of steam. Their original engine, which was much smaller, did. They've actually still got that one. Last I heard it was next to the round house but they want to put it on display in the park again at some point. If you look at the "You know your from Silver Dollar" facebook page you can see a couple of pictures of it in action. But their current engines do not. They're hefty enough that they can keep on rolling and make it back with no problem. And they actually do so on a regular basis if there is a reason to not have a show (e.g. it's pouring rain or other issues)
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Do you know when someone is pulling your chain?
No. No he doesn't. He has repeatedly confirmed this.
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Heard employees say the track is to replace the track that is starting to get old now. Others say we may be sending trains to Branson as another form of transportation, besides the 1 road that leads here.
Do you know when someone is pulling your chain? Those engines would never be able to make the trip between Branson and SDC. They are not designed for it. They cannot even make the park loop without stopping to get a new head of steam pressure.
I am not saying that another form of transportation might be in store for the future. But it will not be these engines.
Almost completely agreed. The Branson to Silver Dollar City train is a long rumored thing that has little chance of actually happening. It wouldn't be worth the millions upon millions that it would cost to build it- far more than any roller coaster, and the staffing costs.... Would it be nice? Sure. Would it be feasible? Nope.
Oh, one small correction. The trains actually no longer need to stop where the robbery is to build a head of steam. Their original engine, which was much smaller, did. They've actually still got that one. Last I heard it was next to the round house but they want to put it on display in the park again at some point. If you look at the "You know your from Silver Dollar" facebook page you can see a couple of pictures of it in action. But their current engines do not. They're hefty enough that they can keep on rolling and make it back with no problem. And they actually do so on a regular basis if there is a reason to not have a show (e.g. it's pouring rain or other issues)
Sir Willow , Thanks for the information. I think a lot of people including me thought the stop was still intended to build a head of steam. Being a Boiler operator for many years the power of steam still wows me at times.
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Does anyone have any new info on the progress of "new" locomotives?
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No one has any new information or photos of the new locos or the restoration?
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Last time I talked to them about it (and my memory is a bit fuzzy on this), one of the three had been pretty much disassembled and parted out for their current three. One of them is in the process of being overhauled and fixed up and prepared for use in the park- I think for next year, but that's again a bit fuzzy. Not sure about the last one.
I know they are trying to do some work on figuring out how they are going to work the extra engine into the round house. But not other than a general idea on that, I don't know any details. It's going to be a few weeks til I'm out there again but when I am I'll try to remember to ask.
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Last time I talked to them about it (and my memory is a bit fuzzy on this), one of the three had been pretty much disassembled and parted out for their current three. One of them is in the process of being overhauled and fixed up and prepared for use in the park- I think for next year, but that's again a bit fuzzy. Not sure about the last one.
I know they are trying to do some work on figuring out how they are going to work the extra engine into the round house. But not other than a general idea on that, I don't know any details. It's going to be a few weeks til I'm out there again but when I am I'll try to remember to ask.
Here I go Again, they need to incorporate a period styled roundhouse into the park itself. You could put in an Observation room into the shop and so on Actually build a turntable and so on, it would allow for the expansion of the park from Outlaw Run to Fireman's Landing or even to Grand Expostion. You black out 76 with the use of buildings and such.
(http://americanbuildersquarterly.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Aerials-2011-07_05-OK.pdf-Adobe-Acrobat.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Roundhouse_Luxembourg_City_train_station_2012-04.JPG/1280px-Roundhouse_Luxembourg_City_train_station_2012-04.JPG)
(http://www.daytrippen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/roundhouse-sonoma-traintown.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Baltimore_%26_Ohio_Railroad%2C_Martinsburg_West_Roundhouse%2C_East_End_of_Race_%26_Martin_Streets%2C_Martinsburg_%28Berkeley_County%2C_West_Virginia%29.jpg)
Anyway, I would certainly go for the the fully enclosed with a turn table in the middle like to give the workers a climate controlled evironment. Butmm fashion of the first pic would do. Maybe there's one out there they can salvage parts of, even the brick. It doesn't have to be out of sight and it would totally be incorporated into the period theme.
It kinda links the Grand Expo theme (St. Louis Worlds Fair) to the West of Outlaw Run . It would be SDC's Kansas City! Dark ride coaster themed to a slauterhouse anyone?
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Had a good talk with one of the lead engineers today about the trains and new engines. if you'll recall, they bought 3 engines- one being the twin to current 76 and one the twin to current 13, along with another. The original plan was to use 13's twin for parts. Well, that's changed a bit. Here's my understanding now of how it stands.
There was one engine that didn't match any of the current ones. You can actually see that one now when going by the round house. It looks nothing like the others, and is not a steam engine at all. It won't be used for pulling the trains, but is very useful for moving around cars on the tracks when they need to, or doing track work, along with other uses. So it is currently in use.
13's twin, which they originally thought they were going to use for parts, they changed their mind and it is currently out of state receiving a major overhaul so that it can be put into use later on. So it will actually be running in the park sometime in the future. No eta on when.
76's twin is in the last stages of it's overhaul and updating for use. You can actually see its tender car sitting by the round house. Yes, it has a tender car, and yes, it will be used with that engine! You'll notice the tender car has a different paint scheme as well. They are hoping to have a grand unveiling at some point in the future, but not sure when as they want to make sure they have all the work done, and that's tough to do with the operating schedule. But it's getting close.
They're hoping to get some room added to the round house, but not real optimistic on the expansion that it's going to really need.
and, of course, all of this is subject to change at any time, so take it for what you will. But I was very excited about the future of the new engines and the train. :-)
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Sounds like awesome news! Would be a pleasant surprise if it was unveiled alongside the new coaster for 2018.
Really wished the park could invest in expanding the railway by making it longer or building a 2nd one. They still have a HUGE amount of land at their disposal.
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There was one engine that didn't match any of the current ones. You can actually see that one now when going by the round house. It looks nothing like the others, and is not a steam engine at all. It won't be used for pulling the trains, but is very useful for moving around cars on the tracks when they need to, or doing track work, along with other uses. So it is currently in use.
It only makes sense to have a little diesel dodger for utility work.
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Anyone know when the rebuilt engine will arrive from PA? Maybe we can get pictures of it traveling to SDC.
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Saw on one of the SDC related Facebook pages that engine 504 is operating.
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I've got a bunch of various stuff uploading before I leave for Israel tomorrow, but I was out there and got several photos and video segments. Look for it to be posted in a couple of hours if I don't overwhelm my bandwidth. :-)
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Was this engine running last week? Kept forgetting to look at the number of the engine every time it went by but it had a great whistle. Big improvement over previous whistles in my opinion.
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Was this engine running last week? Kept forgetting to look at the number of the engine every time it went by but it had a great whistle. Big improvement over previous whistles in my opinion.
No it wasn't, at least not during park hours. Today was it's first official day of operation.
Photos posted at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.933831653463736.1073741835.552161658297406&type=3 and video coming in a bit.
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Video clips are live. https://youtu.be/Vkc4_czKmPc
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Looks and sounds great. Thanks for the video Sirwillow.
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Love it!
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Video clips are live. https://youtu.be/Vkc4_czKmPc
Thanks for the great video. The new engine looks awesome.
During your on-train footage, was the passenger who talked the entire time with your party? I apologize if she was, but I would be irritated if someone yammered on and on for the entire ride. It's hard enough to hear the conductor without someone else talking the whole time.
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sir wallow, I noticed in the video there were a fireman and an engineer in the cab. Do you know if this was just because of the inaugural day or will this locomotive require a 2 man operation?
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sir wallow, I noticed in the video there were a fireman and an engineer in the cab. Do you know if this was just because of the inaugural day or will this locomotive require a 2 man operation?
Sir WALLOW! ;D ;D ;D
Perfect Fruidean Slip.
No it only uses one, or at least that was the case today.
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Thanks Swoosh
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During your on-train footage, was the passenger who talked the entire time with your party? I apologize if she was, but I would be irritated if someone yammered on and on for the entire ride. It's hard enough to hear the conductor without someone else talking the whole time.
Not with us. It was just me and another guy, no women with us this time. And yes, she talked a lot! lol
sir wallow, I noticed in the video there were a fireman and an engineer in the cab. Do you know if this was just because of the inaugural day or will this locomotive require a 2 man operation?
They had 2 for the first day, but it only needs one to run. The second person would be the "fireman"- in the old days the guy that would shovel coal into the firebox. But since that has been converted to diesel instead of coal, that position isn't needed anymore.
Sir WALLOW! ;D ;D ;D
Perfect Fruidean Slip.
::) ::) ::) Guess I can't say I'm surprised at your amusement Swoosh.