SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. Ex-Santa Fe 4-8-4 No. 3751 will make a May 3 trip from Los Angeles to San Diego, a reprise of its trip last summer. Adult fares start at $169. The 3751 steam locomotive pulled the last scheduled steam passenger train between Los Angeles and San Diego in 1953.
The train will depart Los Angeles Union Station around 7:45 a.m., arrive in San Diego and noon, depart San Diego at 5:25, and arrive back in Los Angeles at 9:15 p.m.
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - Universal Pictures has released a trailer for the movie “Public Enemies” featuring Milwaukee 4-8-4 No. 261 on its Web site.
The movie, based on the life of Depression-era gangster John Dillinger, is set for a July 1 release. No. 261 visited Chicago and Milwaukee from its Minneapolis home last summer for shooting. The trailer features a view of 261 pulling a passenger train into the south end platform tracks at Chicago Union Station.
The movie stars Johnny Depp as Dillinger, plus Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard.
Nevada Northern 2-8-0 No. 93 is expected to re-enter service by April after sustaining a bad axle, the Ely Times has reported. The museum recently invested $400,000 to replace cracked axles.
These repairs won’t be nearly as costly; the Executive Director Mark Bassett estimates fixing the axle will cost $7,000 to $10,000. Further, the repair might be covered under warranty from earlier work.
Workers discovered the bad bearing when it heated from a normal temperature at Keystone, Nev., but had increased to 290 degrees by the time the train reached the yard.
No. 93 was just returned to service in January after undergoing extensive repairs earlier last year. The Nevada Northern Railway’s oldest steam engine was briefly back in service after cracked axles were replaced at a cost of about $400,000. Locomotive 93 broke down about three weeks after Gov. Jim Gibbons smashed a bottle of champaign rededicating the 100-year-old steam-era engine for the next century. No. 93 is expected to be ready in time for the April weekend excursions.
For railfan Don Collingsworth and his family, their Colorado summer dream vacation included 5 of the most popular scenic tourist rail trips Colorado has to offer. With his lovely wife and two daughters capturing the whole adventure on both video and digital, you can almost feel the sensation of experiencing train travel through one of America’s most majestic and scenic mountain wonderlands. Don gets off some pretty spectacular shots of the rugged Colorado Rockies and the action of the five tourist train rides as he and his family take in the breathtaking beauty of train travel through Colorado. If you have ever wanted to take a tourist train vacation with some spectacular scenery, this is definitely one of the most popular destinations for rail fans and photographers alike that is sure not to disappoint. Don also provides some some tips on photo locatons as well. Now that’s a family vacation!
The five tourist lines they visited were:
Cumbres & Toltec (Chama to Antonito);
Durango & Silverton;
Royal Gorge;
Georgetown Loop;
Pike’s Peak Cog Railway.
To see Don’s tourist train photos and his review of their experience, go to :http://tinyurl.com/b7jl3v
OMAHA, Neb. - Union Pacific’s steam program will cross the West this spring on a marathon tour that will start April 11. Its train will visit towns in Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California, stopping at town festivals and going on public display at stops along the way. Power, either 4-8-4 No. 844, or 4-6-6-4 No. 3985, has not been determined.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - For the first time in nearly 14 years, New Yorkers on Friday will be able to ride a passenger train directly from the Big Apple to the East’s largest gambling metropolis. The Atlantic City Express Service, or ACES, is the rare collaboration of three of Atlantic City’s largest casinos: Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, and Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
The new service, operated by NJ Transit and booked through Amtrak, is intended to draw upscale professionals living in New York City to its sponsors’ casinos for a weekend of entertainment and gambling. Many New Yorkers do not own cars, and getting to Atlantic City involves a long bus ride on the crowded Garden State Parkway. ACES’ partners believe that Gotham residents who would not otherwise visit the casinos will be attracted by the new train service.
Atlantic City Express Service will feature extra-comfortable versions of NJ Transit’s multi-level cars on its New York-Atlantic City trains, set to debut Friday.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - The Southern Appalachia Railway Museum announced it would operate a series of photo freights with newly restored Louisville & Nashville Alco C-420 No. 1315 this March. The runs will cover the K-25 Manhattan Project railroad in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The Museum is based in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area and operates the Secret City Scenic Excursion Train through the former K-25 Manhattan Project facility.
The event will feature a night photo session on Friday, March 20, and numerous photo runs on Saturday, March 21. All proceeds from the event will go toward restoring additional locomotives, passenger cars, and freight cars owned by the museum. The freight trains will feature the C-420 and an L&N caboose. It will include freight cars from the 1940-1970 era, all appropriate for the consist. Photographers and riders will be handled in both the train’s caboose and several closed-window coaches. (more…)
WILMINGTON, Del. - In 2009 the only regularly operating 4-4-0 east of the Mississippi will turn 100 years old. Built in 1909 by American Locomotive Co. in Schenectady, N.Y., for the Mississippi Central Railroad, No. 98 has been in service at the Wilmington & Western tourist line since October 1972. The engine was completely rebuilt in 2001-2004.
Wilmington & Western operates a 10-mile route from Greenbank Station to Hockessin, Del. Greenbank Station is about a 15-minute drive from Amtrak’s Wilmington station.
MINNEAPOLIS - The Twin Cities is known for its long, cold winters, but inside the shop building at Minneapolis Junction, just east of downtown, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261 waits for the warmth of spring, so workers from the nonprofit “Friends of the 261″ can resume the rebuilding efforts that began last fall. Following its last trip, a Minneapolis - La Crosse (Wis.) round trip on Canadian Pacific and BNSF Railway on Sept. 14, 2008, the locomotive was torn down for its federally mandated 1,472-day inspection and overhaul. This will be the largest amount of work performed on No. 261 since it was restored to service in 1993. The engine now resembles a shell, with major components removed and the boiler stripped of materials. Dismantling proceeded but no large expenditures will take place until a new lease agreement is reached.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The rail car President-elect Barack Obama will ride to Washington for his inauguration contains the trappings of a fine hotel or yacht, with painted walls, cherry wood, brass Pullman lamps and modern amenities for a comfortable ride.
The Georgia 300, a shiny blue car built in 1930, can hold six to eight people comfortably for Saturday’s ride from Philadelphia. The leased car is plush and upholstered with a kitchen and two living areas as well as a bedroom and dinning room.
“It is modernized and upgraded, but it doesn’t show that,” said Jack Heard, who owns the rail car. “It still displays the grandeur of the 1930s.”
The car was first built by Pullman Standard for the Southern Railway, when the car was known as the General Polk and used by railroad officials.
Georgia Railroad later acquired it in 1954, and Heard, who is president of First Coach Rail Inc., bought it in 1986. It was a prized purchase for a man who recalls seeing the car as a boy in Atlanta.
Heard has made a series of electrical and plumbing upgrades to the car over the years.
“It had deteriorated and I completely rebuilt it,” said Heard, of Fernandina Beach, Fla.
“There is a dining room that seats between six and eight and offers full meal service, an observation room, an open rear platform, and TV/VCR, stereo, terminal and cellular phone services,” said Withers, author of “The President Travels by Train: Politics and Pullmans.”
During the day, the car can comfortably accommodate eight passengers, and at night it sleeps six in its compartments.
The Georgia 300 was used as a support car in 1992 by George H.W. Bush during his campaign.
“I guess they liked the car, and it was tapped again to be used for the Clinton campaign in 1996 as his personal car and it just kept on,” Heard said.
It also was used during Sen. John Kerry’s campaign in 2004.
Obama is already acquainted with the rail car, which he used in April on a whistle-stop tour from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Pa.
Obama’s 135-mile tour from Philadelphia to Washington is meant to mirror President Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 journey by train for his inauguration.
By BRIAN WITTE
Vice president-elect Joe Biden and President-elect Barack Obama greet the crowd at Wilmington, Del., from the back of private car “Georgia 300.” The observation car was coupled to the end of a special 10-car Amtrak train provided for Obama’s whistle-stop tour from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 17, 2009. Crowds thronged Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor to get a glimpse of the train on its 137-mile journey. Biden joined the trip at Wilmington after addressing the thousands gathered at a park near the train station earlier that day. Obama’s special train evokes the spirit of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train of 1861. TRAINS Magazine’s Amtrak reporter, Bob Johnston.
The Georgia 300 is stored between charters at a coach yard Heard owns in Orange Park, Fla.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. Ex-Santa Fe 4-8-4 No. 3751 will make a May 3 trip from Los Angeles to San Diego, a reprise of its trip last summer. Adult fares start at $169. The 3751 steam locomotive pulled the last scheduled steam passenger train between Los Angeles and San Diego in 1953.
