In August of 1960, the Minnesota Railfan Association ran a fan trip on the DM&IR out of Duluth, to Proctor, and then I'm not sure of the route it followed. Motive power was Yellowstone No. 222. The photo below was taken with an 828 Roll Film camera on Kodachrome film. f8 at 1/60th. I was 11, and religiously wrote such things down. This slide has been sitting in a box for the better part of 40 years, untouched, unprotected and uncared for.

I purchased a 14.0 Megapixel slide scanner today, and the scan below was my first effort with it. No correction. Just resized it down to 800 pixels (from 4608) wide. And uploaded it. The slide itself is not that sharp, and considering the camera and the optics, that's unsurprising. But the result pleased me and brought back some fond memories. The odd thing (to me) is that my parents let an 11 year old (me) go on that trip alone. Fascinating.

Very cool stuff, and great of you to share it.
Thanks!

Which one is you? :-)

-Hudson

its backwards!! (classic slideshow rant)

Is this better?

-Hudson

I can't imagine seeing something like that at 11...
Then again, I got my first cab ride about that age (TVRM, SRR 630) and that really made an impression. And I'd seen SRR 4501 and 4449 from the Freedom Train at the age of 6.
But seeing a locomotive that big under steam at the age of 11? That would've fried my brain!

Actually, our trip was pulled by 222, but 221 was in steam in the yard at Proctor. As were a couple of other locomotives, but I didn't photograph 'em. Only had two 8 shot rolls of Kodachrome (8 shots each) for my dad's little 828 Folding Camera.

Dear Doug:
Fond memories indeed!
I got my first cab ride in a steam locomotive (No.222) on that trip, 4th of July weekend, 1960.
Along our way to Biwabik we stopped for a movie run (under a coaling tower as I recall). I got up in the cab along with a dozen other people. I was grooving on all the gauges and such when we began backing up. No one threw me off so I rode along. Pretty heady stuff for a 13 year old!
On the return trip we stopped at Ely and they backed 2-8-2 No.1304(?) out of the enginehouse pulling 2-8-0 No.1218 for us to take pictures of.
I still have the grainy 8mm movies I shot that on that trip. It was co-sponsored by Illini Railroad Club and Minnesota Railfans Association. The Illini portion originated at Chicago and CB&Q No.5632 hauled our train to St.Paul and back (fast!).
I too was on the trip alone, but aside from running out of money on the way back to Chicago (a sandwich in the "Omaha Club" was a whole dollar!), it was a great trip.
Thanks for sharing!
J.David

You are very welcome. I think I have some more slides from that trip. Sorry about the date confusion. The slides were processed in August.

uhh.....uhhh


well yeh...heheh

I have the Sunday only, I'll check, the one I heard is on actually a Nickel Plate album,
long sequence with a foghorn and the low torting of the engine whistle, makes your whiskers stand on end, great sequence.