N&W 611 excursions in Manassas to enhance city-wide Railway Heritage Festival

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N&W 611 excursions in Manassas to enhance city-wide Railway Heritage Festival

Do the “new” excursions include a photo runby for the riders? Do any of the passenger cars have open windows?

Roger: the answer to both of your questions is no.

I guess any steam excursion nowadays is better than none at all. I remember the good old days and enjoying Southern’s open “recording car” from the 80s. I brought goggles and rode in it up King’s Mountain on a Lexington to Chattanooga excursion. By the end of the day, I had about a half-inch of cinders in my shirt pocket.

One problem with a layover at Front Royal–which is what used to happen years ago–is that the spur from the lower wye down into “downtown” Front Royal, which was used to park the train and unload for local festivities–has been removed from service, if not entirely removed, and there’s now no convenient place to “park” and service the train during layover.
As for photo runbys: It’s easier to have everyone go watch videos at YouTube shot by others trackside than to tie up the train and single-track line for 30 minutes to an hour unloading folks, backing up the train, running past, then backing up and reloading.

The last time they ran the 611 out to front Royal was during a festival in Ft Royal and I drove up RT 55 chasing the ride out to Front Royal from Manassas. I gather it will be a lot more crowded as everyone jockies to get the best location for a picture. Get to “The Plains” early and catch them working up the step grade or Just East of Beverly Mill there is a bridge that crosses over the tracks as the train is working up hill.

I was just looking at my video collection and one of them is an America Alta Vista video called 611 Double" and it features two runs done in the 1980’s In the first video they point out smoking brakes on a tool car and 20 minutes later you see the 611 slipping drivers on a hill because the tool car is dragging them down just enough. Nice close ups of the drivers slipping with the sanders getting clogged. The trouble is I can’t find it listed anyplace even on Ebay so I lucked out buying it years ago it. Another tape is the 611 on Saluda by the same company. If you want to see the Challenger and the 1218 there is a Mark I Video available on Ebay called “Articulateds” The reason I mention that video is the 1218 is shown on the same run from Manassas to Front Royal on the B line. It was one of the last runs it did before the steam program was closed down.