Steam & Excursion > The Excitement Of This Steam Ritual Is Well Demonstrated Here!

You can certainly feel the excitement of the charging smoke belching steam locomotive as it crosses this high trestle towards the fans waiting on the nearby hill side.  That is the whole idea behind a steam powered run-by.

This popular ritual has been played out since the earliest railfan events of the 1930's right through today's charter trains across the country.  Some steam powered tourist lines worked a run-by into their daily schedule rather than to wait for a group to charter the trip. One such line was the Vernonia South Park & Sunset Steam Railroad that ran in the 1960's on the old SP&S line from Banks, Oregon to Vernonia. 

In this photo we see VSR&SSRR 2-6-2 #105 completing her runby on the high trestle used by the line outside Vernonia.  We see the passengers in the foreground who have been allowed off the train so they can watch the spectacle unfold as #105 backs her train across the high trestle and then roars back in a fury of smoke and whistle.

Lon live the runby!

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/17 03:17 by LoggerHogger.

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Spectacular. What's the history on the railroad? Was it fairly short lived?

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Mike,

The VSP&SSRR ran from about 1964 until 1969.  They used SP&S crews as they were running on the SP&S line from Banks to Vernonia.

They had 2 former Long-Bell Lumber Baldwins that had run on the L-B line out of Vernonia until that shut down in 1957.  Only 2-6-2 #105 was used in excursion service.

Martin

Martin, here it is in color.  Do you know the date of your b&w photo?  Perhaps I was the SP&S fireman who was smoking it up for the fans.  One day when I was firing for Tom Grier we came out of the trees onto the trestle to find a motorcycle rider bouncing from tie to tie coming toward us.

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Jim,

The date of my B&W shot is August 11, 1968.

Martin

I have an old ARKAY LP recording of this train, and the color photo looks to be the same as the one on the LP cover.

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Jim,
>
> The date of my B&W shot is August 11, 1968.
>
> Martin


It wasn't me smoking it up, Martin.  I was firing  the 105 for Paul Baldassare on the Sunday before that and for "Gabby" Haynes the Sunday after that but on the 11th they had to call a second engineer from the Portland Engineers Extra Board for the fireman position because I wasn't rested.

I had been called for 2:30 PM on the 9th to fire SP&S #2 to Spokane for engineers John Mulligan and Warren Thomas and returned on duty at 9:50 PM on the 10th with engineers Warren Thomas and "Red" Malmberg going off duty in Portland at 9:25 AM on the 11th.  The on duty time for the deadhead from Portland to Banks each Sunday was 8:15 AM with the on duty time at Banks for the passenger job at 10:00 AM.