Nostalgia & History > Steam time at Billings!

Back in October of 2002 the Montana by Steam excursion special reached its easternmost point with a multi-overnight stay in Billings, MT. The “Star” of the event was the former SP&S 4-8-4 700. I had a small role in this event by virtue of my employment as an engineer with Montana Rail Link. After the train made its October 14 arrival in Billings it needed to be “turned” and pointed back west for its eventual departure on the 18th.

I was called off the Laurel Engineer’s Extra Board @ 3:30 PM for what MRL called an extra local. This was simply a 2-man crew that could go anywhere and perform service that was not restricted to switch job guidelines. My partner was Glenn Hicks who sadly has since passed on. Glenn wasn’t a railfan by the traditional definition, but he was genuinely happy about being called to help handle this particular assignment.

Our job was to take light power, MRL units 112 & 702 from Laurel Yard on a short hop over to Billings. Once there we were to couple onto the rear end of the entire excursion train and drag it backward to Mossmain, a junction point on the east side of Laurel. Then we would shove the train up the Great Falls main line, which would be followed by a very delicate forward movement around the sharply curved east leg of that WYE. Worse, this section of track was definitely not up to main line standards. So we had very stern instructions about how we were to keep the speed down to an absolute crawl while the heavy steamer was on that piece of track.

Our tedious chore went off without any mishaps and we tugged the excursion back to Billings without any further undue concerns. Once Glenn & I got our MRL units cut away from the train we were allowed to just “hang around” and watch the steam excursion crew switch the train. MRL had assigned F-45 392 to the train as diesel assist insurance. The crew left the 392 on the train and spotted the 700 in a special display track. For 3 days the 700 was completely open for public access. 100s of Billings and surrounding residents came down to the old passenger station to see a “real live steam engine”!

According to my time book I was able to snooker a few days off after our train-turning shift. Of course, I dusted the cobwebs off my old Canon A-1 out of its hibernation and gave due chase to the 700 on the 18th. I was none too happy about not finding any Kodachrome around Billings. So I had to shoot Fujichrome Provia, with which I had gotten disappointing results in experiments prior to 2002…

1. MRL 392 remains coupled to the body of the SP&S 700 excursion train at the old Billings, MT passenger station, while…

2. …the 700 herself was spotted for display in a separate track.
(2 photos taken October 17, 2002)

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/22 21:01 by santafe199.

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Great story Lance and with photos to boot.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Lance-I love your story telling that goes with the photos.

BB

Great photos, Lance - and the Fuji Provia seemed to work out. I also switched to it around that time and was quite pleased, especially with the lower price for the E-6 processing.

In 2017, it seems finding 35mm film of any flavor in a brick and mortar store would be quite the challenge!

Rich



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/17 13:41 by PasadenaSub.

That was a really excellent trip that I was fortunate to be on. As I recall, I took the Builder out and made it to Sandpoint with little time to spare, having been involved in my first and so far only derailment leaving Chicago Union Station. Dome seat on the train and good quality hotels for overnight stops. Too bad their regular excursion train didn't last.

Lance,
You should know it is MossMAIN not MossMAN.LOL

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

retcsxcfm Wrote: > ...  MossMAIN not MossMAN ...

(chuckling) I did know that! But my error-prone typing fingers must have missed the memo...

;^)