Saw this on railpictures and thought it was worth posting. She recently visited the A&A. This is a great example of private preservation going right (I know there are many example of private preservation going wrong too). She does seem to get around.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 949&nseq=2

Two questions: How does she get from site to site for operations?
How often in historical operations, did a railroad run a combination of an 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 coupled to a ten-wheeler of similar locomotive? I guess it makes an opportunity to watch two steam locomotives in action. Beautiful photo.

The #6 is moved on a low boy trailer from site to site. It will also visit SteamFest in Owosso at the end of July.

While the A&A never owned an 0-4-0 for it's freight operations, they try one out on the line in the 1940's. It was most likely considered for use around Arcade since a majority of the traffic was on the two mile stretch through Arcade. I'm sure they never double headed it as short a time as it would have been on the line.

The #6 tank engine took on water at both ends of the trips. Let me tell you that the little engine really does pull! From a distance, you'd never guess that it was that little 0-4-0 making all of that noise! It pulled the 6 car consist with #18 also being pulled behind for the first part of the trip and sounded great. #6 is listed as 17,360# tractive effort, where as #18 is listed as 28,400#.

I got to visit the doubleheader last weekend. A&A put on a good steam show.

If you always 'passed them off' I'd suggest you rethink that decision. #18 was restored to operation last year, and the orange trim has faded a bit. She's a very 'down to earth' locomotive. The entire trainset is now in pullman green, reportedly for some movie work. The track is probably now the best this railroad has EVER seen, thanks to a rebuilding grant from NY state for joint excursion and freight service.

The whole place was frankly, as good as I've ever seen it since I started visiting it as a kid from the age of 8. Long live the A&A!

Viscose 6 has a significantly higher decibel level than its size would indicate, both from the stack and from the whistle. Puts on a good show. I was surprised that there was no visible difficulty with either slipping or keeping steam up, although it was noted that she uses a lot of water.

Of the little 0-4-0T's around (Viscose #6, Flagg Coal #75, New Hope Valley #17), is this the first time that one has visited a STEAM powered tourist hauling railroad? Most of the previous visits have seemed to be to DIESEL powered lines, where the appearance of a steam locomotive might help attendance. BTW, did the A&A in fact, have a higher attendance during the number 6's visit?

Les

According to the staff, they were a lot busier than usual and it was a 'very good day'. It was by no means a sellout of train capacity, but between the kids, locals, and railfans it was pretty busy.

A&A has been working to develop an e-mail list of interested individuals and they publicized the event that way, plus getting advance TV coverage, and it appeared here as well. They did OK.

Les,
Flagg Coal 75 visited the New Hope Valley RR in November 2007 for 2 weekends of doubleheaders with the NHV 17. It also showed up in Dennison, OH a few years ago when the Ohio Central did Trainfestival, although I don't know if that counts by your criteria.

The New Hope Valley trip is the only real tourist line trip though that I'm aware of. I can't speak for the second weekend, but there were a bunch of people out for the first weekend of the doubleheaders and special railfan passes available for transport to photo locations away from the roads that had been cleared. It was a very nice event.

Hello Kevin, thank you for the kind words about our 2007 event. The Flagg Coal 75 will be returning to the New Hope Valley Railway for more doubleheaded runs on October 31st and November 1st 2009. We're still planning the details but we are discussing a photo freight, and somehow incorporating our newly restored Southern RPO car into the event.

The gentleman who runs the Viscose #6 was in attendance at our last event in 2007 as a volunteer member of our crew and was a great asset for us. We are pleased he is having success with his engine and look forward to seeing it in action at Trainfestival this month.

Cheers,
Mike MacLean
Director, Steam Operations
New Hope Valley Railway
http://www.nhvry.org

There's some video out on YouTube already of the doubleheader. Search for "Viscose 6" and "Arcade Attica Railroad" and you'll find them easily.

One of the observations of the doubleheader was that the little drivers and loud stack of 6 made for quite the audio - with the contrast between the exhaust sounds and the whistles it was rather remarkable. The crews had a fun time alternating the whistle blasts at the crossings. There's no pretext on historic accuracy, this was just putting steam out for show and a good one.