Steam & Excursion > Time flies! When you’re having fun

September is right around the corner....

50 years ago, September 1970,
Ross Rowland took NKP 759 around the famous Horseshoe
Curve, leaving Altoona and around the helper-return loop at Gallitzin,
PA.

The first steam trip over those rails
since 1957!

What a pair of trips those two repeats were! Absolutely two
of the BEST HICO trips we operated...

A truly historic event —- especially when viewed from the cab...it’s not often that you get to live your wildest dreams.... Ross allowed me that great experience!!!
What a wonderful gift of a lifetime..

Thanks to all that came along for the Glory Ride.... Your ticket purchase made the whole event possible....

Often imitated,
NEVER duplicated...

Thanks to all that captured those events on film, slides, sound and movies.. You should be very proud..

Thank you, Ross!

Wes Camp

Posted from iPhone

September 1970.  I had just started sophomore year of high school and thus did not drive yet.  My father and I drove through the night from northwest Indiana with a friend of his, a first trick operator at the Chicago and Western Indiana's State Line Tower in Hammond, Indiana, after they both got off work and were on Horseshoe Curve early in the afternoon on Saturday as 759 marched the excursion consist up the grade.  Unassisted!  And with a pair of Penn Central diesels trailing about a mile behind.  I was plastered against the fence shooting 8mm silent movie film.  759 did not once lose her footing climbing that grade and the pop lifted as 759 marched by the crowd.  An unforgettable experience.  I remember on Sunday morning we made a brief stop at the East Broad Top in Orbisonia, PA and then caught 759 at a Pennsylvania Railroad station platform somewhere as it raced by.  We then headed home.  Somewhere I have the slides my father shot that day but the event is seared into the memory!   

That be cool to see them if you can find them!

Posted from Android

Finally found the Horseshoe Curve Special slides.  Sorry no good shots at the curve.  But a couple of the run-by shots look decent.  I'm looking for a decent slide to digital converter.  Open to any suggestions.

I'm looking forward to your pics.  Most of that trip's miles was run between
Altoona and Harrisburg.   So, you've captured the 759's romp ....totally without
assistsnce...

But, again, remember that these engines spent their lives hauling
trains of 75 to 90 cars of freight... 18 coaches hardly held the engine 
down...the cab still bobbed around like a cork on the ocean...

Later, that year we got to haul two freight trains on the Wild Mary, 
That's the first I'd seen what a Berk can do when held-back...

The fire's intensity was much greater than when pulling fan trips,
The engine rode smoothly, almost fired itself, and it romped with ease...
about 80 cars of the Alpha-Jets, westward and East bound.

I'm looking forward to all those folks that have related pics --- at the Curve,
or on the way..

Thanks, so much...
W.