Steam & Excursion > Texas State Railroad Visit

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Texas State Railroad which runs between Palestine and Rusk, having taken Amtrak down from Illinois. Longview is the closest Amtrak stop. In spite of the intense heat (how do you'all live down there?) it was a great experience. A few weeks prior to the trip, I asked on TO if anyone knew how to access the best photo locations. The response from TO member "elueck" not only gave me the directions I wanted, but offered to go with me on the chase on Saturday. That was followed by riding the train on Sunday to see from the line where we had been. Although the line is quite treed in, we were able to get a few decent shots of ex. Magma and Arizona No. 7 and it's train. The second train from Rusk on Saturday was run with a diesel as ex. U.S. Army loco No. 300 wasn't quite ready to re-enter service. Hope you enjoy the following photos.

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Having a railroad volunteer as a guide helped in getting the crew to produce smoke at requested locations! THANKS Everett!

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And yes, we noticed the headlight cover had come off somewhere along the line. The crew was notified and fixed at Maydelle.

Always interesting to see those distinct tan colored magma arizona smokeboxes. There is another one plinthed at the McCormack-Stillman railroad park in Scottsdale, AZ painted same.

-M

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

Lovely pics. Thanks for sharing them.

We live here because of air conditioning. No Joke. SE Texas was really underpopulated until a/c after WWII.

Now, hopefully we'll have # 300, er T&G 28 in steam come cooler fall weather.

Great shots. Thanks for sharing.

Everett is a helluva guy and it's an honor to call him my friend.

How do we live here? It ain't easy. Annual trips to Colorado to cool off helps a bit.

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations

Of course I'll trade with anyone down there in say January!

Harlock Wrote:
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> Always interesting to see those distinct tan
> colored magma arizona smokeboxes. There is
> another one plinthed at the McCormack-Stillman
> railroad park in Scottsdale, AZ painted same.
>
> -M

I remember them as being a Copper color rather then tan.
Chris

trkspd Wrote:
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> I'm still worried about what will go on at TSR now
> that Earl no longer works with IPH.

Earl posted as late as 7/22 regarding TSRR. When did he leave and where did he go?

so, was it posted somewhere else?

Apparently not.

engine3420 Wrote:
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> Harlock Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
> > Always interesting to see those distinct tan
> > colored magma arizona smokeboxes. There is
> > another one plinthed at the McCormack-Stillman
> > railroad park in Scottsdale, AZ painted same.
> >
> > -M
>
> I remember them as being a Copper color rather
> then tan.
> Chris

I'm fascinated by the smokebox color. How did they do that, and I guess I should ask why? Is copper powder substituted for graphite in the mixture that is painted on to the smokebox?

MARR #7 was painted by Earl with high temp copper paint. That was as close as they could get to the copper color used on the Magma.

The desire was to match the Magma color but none of the commercially available hi temp paints were very close and so far as I know those who knew how Magma did it are no longer around. Overall I think they got a pretty good likeness. Apparently the little "wow" in the hand rails around the class lights disappeared in a movie makeover while still at the Magma.

JBWX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/14 11:01 by jbwest.

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So the bigger question - why did Magma do the copper smokeboxes? Just a point of company pride?

Yep, company pride. They were a wholly owned subsidiary of the Magma Copper Company. They did it to be different and to show the world what their heritage was. There is a story that they even experimented with a copper painted locomotive with a black smokebox, but no pictures have surfaced of the experiment.

Earl, have you ever thought of painting "Duracell" along the boiler jacket on her?