I will post some photos soon, but I wanted to let everyone know that Flagg Coal no. 75 is making a stop-over on her way to the West Virginia steam event by way of Scranton, PA.
She will be under steam this weekend, taking caboose trips through the Steamtown yard, Sunday only (Father's Day). Tickets are available at the Electric City trolley museum on Sunday.

While she will not take an active role in the NRHS convention, she will be outside the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel on Monday, June 21 to greet conventioneers as they arrive in Scranton.

Discuss...

Flagg 75 is trucked by the Gramling family all over creation. Around 7:30 last night, she arrived at the South Washington Ave entrance of Steamtown NHS. The 1910 DL&W shop is in the background.

Passing under the Shaw Crane by the Maintenance of Way building.

The trailer is lined up with the rail before taking the tractor away.

Laying the rails to pull 75 onto the track

The pickup takes over...

Here she is gliding off the trailer, making contact with the rail...

Just fooling around with flickr, hoping the image opens up.

Nice pictures Tim, glad you were there to capture the moment with us!

No matter how many times I see that, the loading and unloading is still just plain cool!

Very Cool! 75 is a really cool engine, glad to see her on home rails again.



Anthony

Close enough, Anthony:
I think the Flagg Coal company was in Avoca, about 8 miles away. It would be neat to have her run near the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes-Barre, where some of the buildings still stand on active railroad track.

... someday...

This report (6th page) lists Flagg Coal Co. as being in Lackawanna County

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/bmr/annualreport/1931/pdf/1931%20Anthracite%20Annual%20Report%20District%201%20-%2011.pdf

close enough for me :)



Anthony

The NRHS sometimes gets the reputation of being a bunch of train riders and steam fans. Well, even if we are guilty as charged, we do study a lot on railroad lines, regional history, mechanical developments and the like.

An exhibit that will be on display at the Hilton Scranton and Conference center during the week of the 2010 convention takes another look at history... the NRHS's own history.
Steamtown NHS has hundreds of thousands of documents in its posession, stored in the archives. Most of the paper is too fragile to have as a display, but as the information is recorded, and digitized, it is being made available to the public. A file from the Lehigh Valley RR presidential records contains correspondence with a very young National Railway Historical Society, with letters dating to 1937. Most of the documents in that file are an exhibit for the convention. It will be on display at Steamtown through the RailFest in September, if not longer. Here is a photo taken in the Interpretation office earlier today.

If you want to read the exhibit, or see the photos up close, plan a visit to Steamtown sometime this summer.

BTW, yes that is a balloon in the background. In May, I marked 20 years as a Park Ranger, and one of my co-workers brought a "happy anniversary" balloon, which may last 20 years itself!

Just a thought, I saw this engine recently but didn't happen to notice if a hand brake was present. If not, how do they slow or stop it as it comes off the trailer? What do they use to slow it?

As best as I can recall, when we unloaded her at New Hope Valley, the driver was using his winch to slow her descent while another cable tied to a back hoe kept tension on it. Then you just use chains or chocks to keep it from rolling once you get it where you want it. It was a really interesting process to watch. I've got pictures of the unloading somewhere.

Sometimes we just pray that it ends up on the tracks when it stops. :)

John

You are correct. A winch mounted on the trailer "slows" or "controls" the off-load of the 75, while something on the other end pulls. We did it with chains and one of our locomotives. As I understand it, there have been trucks and a variety of other vehicles used to pull it off. John, correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys like using a flat car and a locomotive, right? John and Barney are the bosses. I'll let them answer!

I had thought there was a Flagg breaker in the Avoca/Pittston area.

The newly finished - and tremendous - Northern Field web site lists Flagg washeries in Moosic, along Spring Brook. More to research here!

http://www.northernfield.info/

Rob