Do I recall correctly that one of these excursions with 2613 ran out of coal?

I tried searching in RYPN for "EM-1" and found no results. How can I search the site for this?

Reading Company tried to donate G-3 4-6-2 219, the last new locomotive built at Reading Shops, to the City of Reading. However the City dithered over the donation and the R.Co. gave up and scrapped the engine in 1957.

As things happen, in 1958, an off-line electrical generating station needed two big steam generators while their boiler was undergoing maintenance. They leased RDG T-1's 2108 and 2109, coupled tender to tender. The Reading publicized the move to and from the power plant, cleaned the engines up and were impressed by the lineside crowds they attracted.

In Spring of 1959 a CNJ Jersey City to Reading fantrip to tour Reading shops and look at 2 cold T-1's (2124 and 2100) and a live 0-6-0T (1251) sold out.

On October 25, 1959, 2124 pulled the first Iron Horse Ramble from Wayne Junction to Shamokin and return.

Phil Mulligan

There was at one point a pretty long thread about “near misses” in railway preservation that was over 20 pages. I’m 95% sure you can find details of what happened in that thread.

I searched here and it said "No posts were found because the word em-1 is not contained in any post." but it is this: https://www.american-rails.com/em-1.html

What was the story with the CofGa 451?

Howard P.

Howard -

"Big Apple" 4-8-4 #451 was set aside for preservation. However, a new Central of Georgia hierarchy came in, cancelled that decision, and scrapped the engine.

Les

"Do I recall correctly that one of these excursions with 2613 ran out of coal?"

Yes, it was on the L&N Centennial trip. L&N officials didn't add enough coal to the tender during the service stop at Bowling Green, Ky on the southbound run. The engine came to a stop at Gallatin, TN and was removed from the train. L&N E units had conveniently followed the train from Louisville and were coupled on. However, IC's Louisville roundhouse foreman Jimmy Dobbins was aboard the train would have none of THAT!

So, the 2613 was re-coupled ahead of the diesels and pushed on to Nashville where it was sent to the Radnor roundhouse, given ample coal and pulled the entire return run without diesel assistance. The train arrived after 3 am instead of the scheduled 10:30 pm.

As I recall, 2101 ran out of coal on a Chessie Steam Special; it was to Lexington KY I believe. Might have been lower BTU coal than they expected.

When they got 2101 to the clamshell, as the first bucket of coal went into the tender, there was a resounding Clanggg! It was indeed empty.

Phil Mulligan

Interestingly enough, W. Graham Claytor used the example of the L&N not have one of their own steam locomotives and having to borrow an IC loco to celebrate their centennial in a letter to Stuart Saunders (N&W President) to encourage him to save the 611, which was sent several weeks before the final trip on October 24, 1959.

Ken Miller

Must have been something about Reading T-1s and coal. I've mentioned it before, but #2102 absolutely did run out of coal on the return leg of the first of two Kent, OH to Greenville, PA trips on Saturday April 30, 1977 near the Ravenna Arsenal, about 10 miles from successfully getting back to the station. I know because I was on the train. They tried to keep the fire going with scrap ties from along the RoW where Conrail had recently done tie work. A trailer train that came up behind us ended up pushing us back to the station.

I don't know why they let it happen. When they were turning and servicing the '02 at the Bessemer roundhouse it was clear the tender was less than half-full. And they didn't cancel the runby on the return trip. This was one of the string of debacles that eventually led to the end of Steam Tours, Inc. and the end of Steam on Conrail for the nearly 10 years.

RDG itself ran 51 Iron Horse Rambles. Their rule of thumb was 100 miles on a tank of water (19000 gal), 150 miles on a tank of coal (26 Tons). Upstate in the mountains or with more than 16 cars they reduced the distances or used two engines. It served them well. They probably bought the same coal they always had rather than cheap stuff that turned into cinders instead of heat.

Phil Mulligan

The "engineer" shown in the photo in the 2613 article was IC Traveling Engineer B.M. Meyers. (That was the IC's title for what today would be Manager of Operating Practices).

The Engineer on both the May and October IC trips was Henry Zirkle.

As a teenager, I rode about half a dozen Iron Horse Rambles on the Reading, behind 2124, 2100 and 2102. They will always be the standard to which I compare other steam excursions I've ridden. So far none have met that standard. Southern and NS came the closest.

I’ve heard a lot of confusion surrounding the engine though. The most interesting part of the deal is that it’s unclear where and when exactly it was scrapped. Some even say it made it to a park in Macon GA