Author Topic: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC  (Read 33003 times)

dkparks

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2016, 12:12:28 PM »
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?

sdcfan88

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2016, 06:39:51 PM »
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/

dkparks

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #17 on: May 23, 2016, 08:24:01 PM »
Anyone been to The City and gotten a photo and / or video of the engine already on property?

shavethewhales

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #18 on: May 23, 2016, 09:26:41 PM »
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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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #19 on: May 23, 2016, 10:37:07 PM »
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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HumphreyHawk

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #20 on: May 25, 2016, 08:40:51 AM »
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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t-n-t

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #21 on: June 15, 2016, 04:48:25 PM »
Is there enough room to make a longer ride?  Can we get a new show too?

Dewayne

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #22 on: June 15, 2016, 10:43:47 PM »
I hope so

sawblade5

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #23 on: June 17, 2016, 03:14:15 PM »
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.

sirwillow

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2016, 08:29:40 PM »
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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Duelist

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #25 on: July 17, 2016, 08:36:36 PM »
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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chittlins

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #26 on: July 18, 2016, 09:14:22 AM »
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.

sirwillow

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2016, 10:12:04 AM »

Quote
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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joshblakebran

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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #28 on: July 18, 2016, 02:54:23 PM »
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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Re: New Steam Engines Arriving at SDC
« Reply #29 on: July 18, 2016, 03:05:41 PM »
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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