Steam & Excursion > Pesky Packing Leak and Other Stuff

Just a quick opinion... if that leaky packing doesn’t seal itself odds are it will be fixed (or replaced). And yeah overall a few people are “eating crow” about the restoration. But either way it looks like we got an operational Big Boy don’t it?
Maybe without a few $million out of the corporate budget it wouldn’t have happened but it did. Might as well savor the moment.
And as much as I hate to hear the sad prospects of the 3985 I wager to say she’s in better shape than when I saw her on display about 1975. The right people in the right places at the right time.... maybe wistful thinking but we all said the same thing about a 4-8-8-4 a while back.

Posted from iPhone

They did a lot of work on the steam shop before undertaking the full scope of the Big Boy restoration...IIRC; they are far better equipped to get 3985 running now than before...IMO.  So, we'll see.  I would like to see them run 3985 and 4014 together, personally.  844 is a star by herself as well...beautiful locomotive.

 

Thomas Austin
Centralia, IL
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