Steam & Excursion > Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad Tacoma-Eatonville

This weekend the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad visited Tacoma for the opening of the DeMay Auto Museum. The railroad offered rides up Tacoma Rail's famous ex. Milwaukee Road, Tacoma Hill. The train returned to the railroad's shops in Mineral Sunday evening.

Photo 1: Northern Pacific #7012A leads the train back down the hill on the first trip of the day.

Photo 2: #7012 passes the Almond Roca plant at the bottom of the hill.

Photo 3: Polson #70 takes the train back up the gulch latter in the day.

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Photo 4: In a scene reminiscent of the days when the Milwaukee ran solid sets of Fs in helper service on this line, #7012A crosses the S-Curved trestle at Freighthouse Square. The locomotive was heading to Union Pacific's nearby Fife yard to pick up the two City of Prineville passenger cars the railroad purchased a few months ago as well as a ballest car (Ex. CWWR?) recently donated by Tacoma Rail.

Photo 5: With five passenger cars and a half loaded ballest car in tow Polson #70 heads up the gulch on it's way back to Mineral. Even with the assistance from #7012A the locomotive put on a good show climbing the grade (about 3.8% at it's steepest point).

Photo 6: #70 arrives in Fredrickson. Here the train would meet a Tacoma Rail freight that was waiting to head back to Tacoma. #7012A was then wyed on the Chehalis branch while #70 picked up a water car left there on the trip down, and filled up the tender in preparation for the climb to Eatonville.

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Photo 7: Polson #70 climbs another hill (there aren't many flat spots on this line) as it enters Graham.

Photo 8: The train rolls through Kapowsin.

Photo 9: Due to deteriorated track conditions, speeds on this section of the line are slow. Here #70 crawls through Clay City.

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Photo 10: The train finally arrived in Eatonville. Here, the railroad performed a crew change and filled the 70's tender.

Photo 11: A time exposure of #70 shortly before it departed for Mineral.

#70 put on quite a show pulling out of Eatonville with no diesel assistance. I gave up chasing at this point as I had a 3+ hour drive to get home and had to be up at six the next morning. Before I left, I drove into Eatonville to get gas, and for over a half an hour after the train left you could hear #70 barking her way up to New Reliance (at this point I was wishing I had continued the chase).

As always thanks to Tacoma Rail and the volunteers at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad for making this trip happen.
Where else can you see a 90 year old logging locomotive make a 50+ mile trip through the mountains?

Ryan Marrs



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/12 23:45 by SLSF1522.

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There are some great shot, thanks very much for posting them. As # 70 is a soak [ not superheated ] I would guess she is bloody hard on water I would think you would have to ' fire ' against the injector all the way.

Malcolm
New Zealand.

Great job Ryan! You captured this all very well, as usual.

Martin

70 looks great as always guys, good job MRSR crew...sorry I missed it this time. Great work on the photos Ryan,shot #2 looks just like a model don't it...sweet!(No Almond Roca Pun intended..maybe)

Cheers, Dave

MMD Wrote:
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> There are some great shot, thanks very much for
> posting them. As # 70 is a soak [ not superheated
> ] I would guess she is bloody hard on water I
> would think you would have to ' fire ' against the
> injector all the way.
>
> Malcolm
> New Zealand.


Fantastic set of photos! The #70 after it leaves Eatonville, you can stand at the gas station and listen to it for 45+ minutes working hard. It really makes everyone in town stop and come out to see what is going on since it's so rare. I am sure at the few crossings coming out of Eatonville siding, they had their usually welcoming party =)

The #70 is definitely a soaker. When me and Scott (flash34) took the train back last August, we were double gunning it on all the big hard pulls (Tacoma Hill, Graham Hill, Clay City), stayed at a half glass, 175-180psi the entire trip. Probably set the record time for Tacoma to Eatonville too at 2 hours. I never seen a firebox as red as I had it until that day though. Damn impressive engine! I believe that was the night after Scott took off and Brian Wise took over that we saw the International Space Station just above New Reliance.

It's a shame the track and conditions wouldn't allow for an Tacoma - Elbe in 4 hours...

Great photo story of all this activity. I sure wish I were closer to MRSR, one of the most ambitious and most successful in the realm of not-for-profit railroad operations.

You guys rock!

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

YG Wrote:
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> Great photo story of all this activity. I sure
> wish I were closer to MRSR, one of the most
> ambitious and most successful in the realm of
> not-for-profit railroad operations.
>
> You guys rock!
>
> Steve Mitchell
> http://www.yardgoatimages.com


Come up next year! You won't be disappointed with what is to come! =D

Thanks to all for your interest. I must second the statements above that our 70 is a beast. Being a saturated locomotive you must indeed run the gun most of the time and with a good piece of the railroad being 20 mph it takes every last bit of her boiler hp to pull hard at speed. But at 15 mph with the gun on and firing valve wide open she is a steady state machine perfectly balanced to exert her 27,500 lbs of te all day long Just as Baldwin designed her. And trust me Sunday was the record for her on our railroad with 5 passenger cars, an f unit in idle, a half full 10,000 gall tank car, and a ballast car. Although when we tied down at 1:30 am I was not reflecting on that much. Just bed....

Stathi

Efstathios I Pappas, MS
Chief Mechanical Officer
Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad

Posted from iPhone

Is this the same line that the ill fated 2101 used to run on?

BTW to the crew, nice job, and great photos on this thread.

It's interesting that in America an injector is refered to as a ' gun ' while here in NZ we called it a ' donkey ' god knows why but from the day I stated railroading 50 years ago they were always donkey. All the lifting ones were Sellars and the exhaust ones were Davis & Metcalf ones.

Malcolm
New Zealand.

Never a dull moment at the Mt. Rainier Scenic, is there? Nice coverage of the event, Ryan. After seeing you there more than once, it was nice to finally meet you at the photo special last month.

CPRR Wrote:
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> Is this the same line that the ill fated 2101 used
> to run on?
>
> BTW to the crew, nice job, and great photos on
> this thread.


Yep, same route that the Golden Pacific Railroad attempted to do with the ex-Reading 2100.

I was the engineer on the 7012A on Sunday. Always a joy to run it.

SLSF1522 Wrote:
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> Photo 4: as well as
> a ballest car (Ex. CWWR?) recently donated by
> Tacoma Rail.
>

Very nice photos, and nice write up by Ryan! The only discrepancy that I would like to correct is that the ex-CWWR ballast car was not donated to MRSR. It is on long-term loan by Tacoma Rail.

Brian Wise
General Manager
Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad

GAWD....MRSR is just heaven... It really is.