Very few trains on the WMSR these days DON'T require at least one of the GP-30's on the rear pushing. Helpers are the norm, not the exception...... With the Geeps on the opposite end from #734, you have the opportunity to hear their 567 prime mover throttled up and under load........

T. Wilson

What I don't understand is why the move is under such wraps. You would think WAR would want the free publicity of move.I wouldn't mind chasing it a little my Grandmother lives near st. Dennis and I know some good spots to watch from and my parents live near Ellicott city and I know good spots there.

This really makes me wish I was back at Aberdeen, MD right now (weather notwithstanding, though)...

Does that mean it'd pass over the bridge in downtown EC, where the old depot is? Man, that'd be a neat photo to get of it passing over that bridge!

As a local in their backyard, I wouldn't call the move "under wraps". They've gone as far as offering to share live streaming video of the move via the Kalmbach website trains.com tomorrow, and they've been practically begging for media attention.

The reality is that, like most such shop facilities, there's not a whole lot of room for both the necessary heavy equipment and the media to maneuver at the Restoration Facility in Baltimore, and there's also the liability and safety issues. Readers of this forum may know well enough to show up in safety shoes, etc., but I would bet much money that someone in the media would show up in flip-flops in this weather. (No kidding, I saw a media photographer in Crocs the last time I went to a trackside "media" event.")

And for all the planning possible, we all know how Brother Murphy tends to sneak in and disrupt things. The planned "loading" has already been pushed back from Wednesday to Thursday, and even then they'll take several days to secure the load before letting CSX take it.

Finally, it's become obvious that the B&O Museum is not the only place around these days that has imposed a more restrictive photo/media policy upon visitors, intended in part to dissuade, for example, much-criticized practices such as commercial model and wedding photographers posing people on active railroad tracks and non-moving display equipment, but also allowing a certain degree of "image control" in circumstances such as these.

But if you, like many others on online forums and Facebook, are seemingly demanding a precise schedule for when on what date the train carrying this loco and tender passes through Harpers Ferry or Hancock, or whether it's going to ride the Old Main Line or not, well, I could reiterate the famous William Shatner line from his famous Saturday Night Live sketch in 1986.......

I believe that's the line that goes to Cumberland and that's a picture I want and wouldn't mind getting a picture of it coming out of the tunnel at patapsco. Maybe a picture also from the stairs of hell house.

In reply to my fellow Marylander if it so well publicized how come out of all my friends and family only me and my cousin new about it. I only heard about it because of this forum and I follow them on twitter and my cousin heard on Facebook. I never asked for a hr by hr schedule of the move just the day. You have to admit this has been more low key then the big boy move that's my opinion anyway.

I can't speak as to how much the UP Big Boy move was publicized to the general public. I will suggest the following:

1) the spectacle of a partially-disassembled loco on flat cars going halfway across a modest-sized Northeastern state is not the same as "the world's largest steam locomotive" rolling on its own wheels across several states.

2) The party taking possession of the locomotive does not own the railroad across which it's being transported. CSX, the transporting railroad, gains little or nothing in publicity value compared to Union Pacific and the 4014, and as seen by the antics shown in a post here with a link to a video of someone being physically removed from the tracks mere feet from the front of a freight train, there are risks in "inviting" folks trackside to see such a spectacle. As such, CSX, which is donating the transportation of this loco, at least theoretically gets "final say" in such publicity announcements.

If you're not careful, we old guys here will start reminiscing when we felt blessed to even be able to use a squawky radio scanner to monitor railroad radio transmissions, and use actual paper maps to find locations (who remembers when DeLorme atlases were a magnificent blessing to the hobby?).....

Me thinks Brother Mitchell hit the nail on the head...... As far as Information being available, I can attest to the number of updates that the WMSR has posted on the WMSR Foundation pages and the regular WMSR page., their Media Staff has been pretty busy with the updates.

The UP event was on the grand scale of showmanship.... how much equipment is moved that doesn't get the fanfare of a Big Boy or attention of the #1309 move?

As for the "old guys .... reminiscing" ... some of us cut the grass or weeded gardens of the local RR dispatcher, Section Foreman, or Towerman in exchange for train movement information....... The old adage of "don't show up with empty hands" comes to mind, at a certain tower you better bring coffee and donuts for the towerman if you wanted a daily line-up.

A move like this would most likely be via the Old Main Line sub, depending on traffic needs. There are a few clearance issues on the OML if the engine is much over 10' wide, like on track 3 between Doub and Point-of-Rocks, in a cut, in a curve, but nothing extraordinary. Any special, clearance implicated move like this gets pretty much the lowest priority, stay out of everything else's way. It could very well take more than a day, and more than one crew to get it from Baltimore to Cumberland. It just depends on when they decide to move it. I had a clearance implicated train on a very early Sunday morning once between Brunswick and Baltimore. It was quiet, and we made the trip non-stop from East Brunswick to St. Denis. My guess is that if it moves as it's own train it will get a "W" (work train) designation, since CSX is probably moving it either free or next to free as a company train for the museum. So, stay tuned to your scanner.

Thanks much for the screen caps, Jeff.

I was hanging around after work at my office and watching it on line. They finally did a short test lift right before I left and then set it back down.

I take it they lifted it slightly, removed the front engine, then lifted it clear, moved the drop center flat underneath, and sat it down?

I'll repeat the thanks for posting the screen captures; like I said, she's getting closer, closer, closer. . .

And Becky Morgan is probably hearing the theme from "Jaws" again ("closer. . .closer").

Hmmm--have you noticed how parts of that theme sound like an approaching steam locomotive? (dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum. . .)

Combine that with the sparks show from the locomotive with bad coal in China, the really haunting sound of a C&O "hooter" whistle (which is what the 1309 would wear), and the 1309's "flying pumps" appearance, which does NOT look the way most people think a steam locomotive should look (think high or centered headlight, pumps at the sides or on the pilot beam, or even something from the 19th century with a spark-arresting stack--plus two sets of machinery), and you have what could be a machine for a "train from hell," at least as Hollywood would imagine it.

C&O H-6 whistle, from older sister 1488:

http://www.steam-whistles.com/sounds/C& ... nest06.wav

Only thing looking more "hellish" would be an Allegheny. . .

Source for the sound file above and others, too. Some pretty ones there. . .including a really nice one from a C&O 4-4-0:

http://www.steam-whistles.com/

No commentary needed. . .

https://twitter.com/WMSRsteamtrain/stat ... 9334684672

https://twitter.com/WMSRsteamtrain/stat ... 6394786816

Just something you don't see every day:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

Great to see! (and as I suspected loco w/o front engine - no surprise either) I am not overly familiar with heavy rigging. What equipment did they use?

They used 4 side-boom Caterpillar tractors (2 near the front and 2 near the back). These kinds of tractors are often used for laying BIG, heavy pipe in trenches. It looked like a good, safe way to accomplish a move like this.

They used a cable sling under the smoke box and I'd imagine some sort of spreader bar at the rear of the locomotive.