Hi everyone I got to see the 261 up close. Tonight it was the most awsome thing I ever got to see in my whole life and yes I got pictures but I got to up load them onto my computer and I should have those up by tomorrow so everyone can see. Them but like I said it was the coolest thing ever. You could see the smoke for 1/2 a more or more and it smelled so good.But anywho It will be here though friday night. The train also came with the miller lite train and a couple of hiwatha cars the bright orange ones. But anywho like I said it is the coolest thing I’ll most likey ever do in my whole life. [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][4:-)][4:-)]
Live steam is cool (actually it’s hot, but you know what I mean). Last one I saw under steam was a switcher at the early version of Steamtown in Scranton, and that was a while ago…
“For many people, a steam locomotive came as close as a piece of machinery could to being alive. You could smell the breath of these machines – an odor of hot iron, coal smoke, and the steam these engines exhaled from their metallic lungs … no one can pretend that railroading is the same as when steam was king and iron monsters blasted their ways across the rails.”
Milwaukee Road Magazine, “Milwaukee Steam – Part Two,” 62:10, December, 1974, pp. 8-12. Pretty sure the text was written by Milwaukee’s Marc Green.
“The {Steam] locomotive aroused the deepest emotions of which Americans were capable – awe at its power, at the thrust of its great wheels, the clouds of trailing smoke, the tolling bell, the eerie whistle born mournfully on the wind (the most haunting music of the new age); greed at the wealth it promised; rage at its dictatorial and unpredictable ways and at the corruption that followed it everywhere like a dark cloud. All that was the best and worst in America …”. Page Smith, cited in Lapham, Lewis H., “Notebook”, Harper’s Magazine, January, 1994, p.8
When it was in Green Bay, WI several years ago at the old C & NW depot (now Titletown Brewing Co.) I got to climb up in the cab the day before they operated excursions to Appleton. One of the crew stood by in the cab while people came and went asking questions and looking around. I had been in the cab many times before when the locomotive was on display at the National RR museum in Green Bay, but it is a totally different experience when the engine is “alive.”
About five yers ago I was in the Minneapolis area and happened to be returning from lunch when I saw some tracks and a large steel building with the Milwaukee Road logo on the side of it. I stopped and took a chance to see if the door was open…it was, and I stepped inside to an incredible sight, the 261 along with several Milwaukee Road cars including the skytop observation car. There were a bunch of people in the building working on the various pieces of rolling stock and they couldn’t have been more friendly. They let me into the cab of 261 and walked me through some of the cars. The next time I saw 261 and the cars was about a year later when she came through Aurora, IL on her way to Galesburg RR days. Thanks to the guys and gals who care for 261…I hope to see her again tomorrow night in Sturtevant. Anybody know when she will arrive in Sturtevant and where they will turn her?
Jim
Departs Milwaukee at 6pm and is scheduled to be back at 10pm. I am guessing Sturdevant somewhere around 7pm. I plan on being at Sturdevant to try to shoot the train making the turn.
email me through the forum for some other info that may be of assist.
Jay
Times are available on the 261 site http://www.261.com/ and I remember a wye in the area, to a coal plant I believe, which would cover the turn. You could poke around maps.google.com to find it. Passed the consist on my way to work this morning.
What’s this about the Miller Lite cars? Thought the Mayor voted Lite Rail down…
Thanks guys, I plan on being at Sturtevant’s old Amtrak station at about 6:30 or so and will wait to see her…I hope.
I got to ride behind 261 from Chicago to Galesburg in 98 or 99 I can’t remember. It was an all day trip down and back! we must have stopped a dozen times to check hot bearings on the tender and to ice the hot one. One highlight was a bi-plane pacing us for about 30 miles near Kewanee, flying up-side down with us. Also at every grade crossing, and I mean every one people were waitng to see the big steam train go by. I will never forget it!!!
I got the last of my MILW 261 shots up this morning, including one “inspired” shot… [swg] Too bad the light wasn’t as nice on Tuesday. It was still fun chasing the steam engine one last time… till 2008!
Nice shot as always Mark. When I was in the cab they opened up the floor board to show how the stoker gets coal into the firebox. That must make the entire floor shake
Dave Nelson