Moderators may choose to move this to Railfan board. I participated on the Carl Franz photo freight on Strasburg RR, Saturday Feb 15. The day was cold, windy, and snowy. A foot of crusty snow was on the ground. An additional inch or two fell during the day. Strasburg had plowed on Friday. I want to highlight several aspects that were most impressive about the day.
The basic train was 475 and 9 freight cars, followed by combine and coach. A caboose was available and could have been used dropping the coaches for runbys. Patrons elected not to spend the extra time involved dropping coaches, so no caboose was used. Since it was Opening Day at Strasburg, 89 would pull passenger trains at noon, 1, and 2 PM. 89 participated with the photo freight for double headers and also solo. Crews were exceptionally efficient switching engines around. The rip ran roughly 6AM-6 PM. There was no sun. The equipment performed flawlessly as far as I could tell. The vintage freight cars are simply amazing. The engines retained their Strasburg lettering.
Cooperation for the patrons
I was very impressed how the Strasburg folks worked very hard to "put on a good show". There was excellent coordination and they seemed very willing to go the extra mile (no they didn't lay more track).
Cooperation with neighbors
It is very apparent that Strasburg has a great relationship with the neighbors bordering the railroad. We were able to traipse through dormant fields and around farms. These scenes are not available in summer. The snow was a plus in that it kept from traipsing through muddy fields.
Safety and Comfort
The most impressive part of the trip was the work of the crew to keep everybody safe and comfortable. Understand that Strasburg was unloading about 75 folks along the right of way into snow a foot deep while snow was coming down. The crew continually worked to keep the steps clear, frequently using ice melter. I was amazed that they used ice melter directly on the vintage equipment. I meant to ask what they were using. I had a little concern for some of the guys who are up in years, perhaps a little overweight and carrying camera bags and tripods navigating the deep snow. Fortunately no 911 calls were needed.
Heating the cars was done the way it was 100 years ago.....coal stoves. There were two vintage coal stoves in each end of the coach. They did a fine job keeping the cars warm. The wind was tough which I suspect helped provide enough draft to keep the stove fires burning during the stops. Crew did a fine job of stoking the stoves. Can anybody provide more info on these stoves?
A couple of videos for your pleasure.
The meet at Groffs with the returning 2 PM train. This simply looks like it could have been 100 years ago.
http://youtu.be/kmGboLhjRKU
Multiple runbys in this video.
http://youtu.be/Ja8UdQ4oggI
I have scores of other photos, not really great pics, some even bad.
https://sharedpicsbytom.shutterfly.com/
Thanks, Tom