cp4449 wrote:tyleire wrote:I'd really like to see live steam come back to scheduled public runs; if not every week then on Disney Barn days. As a conductor, I've had people ask when they can come back to the track to see steam and I never have a good answer.
Again I totally agree with this. But some members who own steam locomotives are having "temper tantrums" between other members, and do not come out. As the old saying goes "Can't we all just get along?" There are a lot of steamers that are "hanger queens" at LALS. How to convince those members to come out and pull the public is the problem also. It did not help the cause when the BOD mandated the bench cars, as some people had great matched cars for their loco.
I try to encourage 1" members to come out on the third Sunday, when the Disney Barn is open, so we have a lot of variety of equipment running, steam and electric. If there are any local 1" owners out there we are planning a mini meet on 3/19-20 at LALS. Nothing fancy, just come and run.
BTW Gary, I owe you a public apology. My wife and I take care of Minden area on the layout, and do not take down the Halloween stuff there. So I am part of the problem , and will take care of that this weekend if I can.
NO apology necessary sir. But I would sincerely hope to see it in place in the Minden area when the Halloween season rolls around again this year
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As for the so-called "demise" of the steamers pulling the public on Sundays.............Dan O'Brien and I pulled the public with Dan's Allen Mogul just about every weekend (save for extreme weather conditions and rain) for almost twenty years (1983-2003). Same engine that is shown in the 1986 LALS video. I would be willing to bet that that little mogul put more miles on it during that period than many of the others out there. We used our own gondola riding cars for our train. We even added some of my custom built rolling stock (reefer, wood gondola as "buffer idler" cars between the tender and the first riding gondola for the public passengers). We also used by custom-built wood caboose as our brakeman's abode. All of us were a lot "younger" then (circa 1985), that's for sure. And as you can see, many things have been added at LALS since then.
Dan is shown off to my left in this photo, as we backed up to pick up the rest of our trai.
Kevin Gaston, member of LALS, as brakeman in my caboose. Dan, Kevin and I all worked together in the same metal trades.
Climbing eastbound up the long trestle. Dan "Brakeman" and me "engineer". Apparently we weren't using the wood gondola that day. What's really interesting about this photo is that we were ONLY using engine brakes on this train. NO train brakes AND we were still able to handle this train with ease.
