I recently had the enormous pleasure of being a Guest Engineer. After mentioning this to another person on here, I decided to post what I know as far as US programs go.(Disclaimer: This is correct as far as I know, but probably not exhaustive. Please check all information before relying on it. [:)] ) Of course, if anyone knows of any more, please post them for us; thanks.
Eastern region:
Maine Narrow Gauge RR Company: no program in 2010 due to repairs
Seashore Trolley Museum (OK, 2-3 trolleys/park trains in here) Kennebunkport, ME $50
RR Museum of New England Thomaston, CT ‘Engineer for an Hour’ $285
Valley RR Comp Essex, CT $500
Shoreline Trolley Museum East Haven, CT $50
Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley RR Milford, NY ‘Guest Engineer’ $350 for 3 hrs
(I’m quite sure there is one in PA but I can’t locate its info right now; possibly one in WV?)
PA - Williams Grove Historical Steam Assoc; pls see other post in this thread
Midwest:
Fort Wayne Indiana RR historical Society
Monticello (IL) Railway Museum ‘Throttle Time’ $100 for 30 mins
West:
Sumpter (OR) Valley RR $1395 (+ $350 for added time, etc)
Western Pacific RR Museum Portola, CA $150 - $175 - $275 different experiences
Orange Empire Railway Museum Perris, CA $190/hr - $285/hr
Roaring Camp and Big Trees RR Felton, CA ‘Engineer for a Day’ $175
Nevada Northern Railway Museum Ely, NV diesel $495; steam $695 **Also, they h
Thanks for starting this thread, and compiling all that info. I ought to know about those in Pennsylvania - but I can’t think of any right now. A couple of the possible candidates - the Knox and Kane, for one - have recently closed. Stay tuned - maybe later today . . .
A quick Google search for the phrase ‘‘engineer for an hour’’ came back with about 834,000 results. One of those on the 1st ‘page’ appears to be for a new one - the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, running on the Chesapeake & Indiana Railroad at North Judson, Indiana. The ‘‘Petition for Waiver of Compliance’’ to the FRA, dated May 6, 2009, Waiver Petition Docket No. FRA-2009-0023 - it’s less than 1 page, in small type, though - can be found at - http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-11020.pdfBubba Justin - this might be one for you ! [swg]
It might be interesting to also do a Google search for the phrase ‘‘engineer for an day’’, and see what else shows up.
Related but slightly different is the diesel locomotive operating simulator at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, which I believe coborn35 is quite familiar with. I’ve also seen that BNSF donated an outdated one to the KC Union Station, but I have no further info on that.
It would be worthwhile to add some more info to the above list - such as the type of locomotive
The Valley Railroad in Essex CTmay look expensive but you receive the Locomotive Manuals (dated 1918) and Waver well in advance for you to study. On your scheduled day you receive three hours training followed by one hour on the Throttle of a Mikado Class SteamLocomotive operating on over 8 miles of former New Haven RR tracks**.** They operate a Mikado Class and a Consolidation Class, both from the 1920s, and are rebuilding the former Knox & Kane China made Mikado for future use. www.essexsteamtrain.com/throttle.html
The photos on that page are mine.
The Railroad Museum of New England, running the Naugatuck Railroad between Waterbury CT and Thomaston, operates an RS-3, a U23B, and has added a FL9. I do not know which locomotives are used in the “Engineer For An Hour Program”. www.rmne.org
The Santa Fe Southern in Lamy, New Mexico, used to have this program, but I don’t know if they still do. It used to cost $75 to run the engine from Lamy to Santa Fe.
[#offtopic] Here is the ultimate" guest engineer program"[:-,]
For all you ‘Walter Mitty’ types! [}:)]
The only thing any better would be guest engineer on the new TORNADO :
(teaser)
The world’s most expensive aircraft has a devastating new bomb that may yet end North Korea’s nuclear pretensions. More to the point, they’ve just tossed the keys to an RAF pilot. LIVE reports from a top secret USAF base in Missouri on a very British coup [swg]
OK, I looked briefly at the websites for all of the following, but did not see anything that indicated any of them had this kind of program available:
Strasburg RR, Lancaster, PA area
Steamtown NHS, Scranton, PA
Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern RR at Kempton, PA - midway between, and a little north of, Allentown and Reading, PA
East Broad Top RR - Orbisonia/ Rock Hill Furnace, PA, about 50 miles south of Altoona
Cass Scenic Railroad, WVA - in the woods in the middle someplace
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, Cumberland, MD
Potomac Eagle Scenic RR - same general area.
There used to be scenic railroads in the Wellsboro, PA area, as well as in the Titusville/ Oil Creek, PA area, and the Everett RR just south of Altoona/ Hollidaysburg, and maybe another 1 or 2 out by Pittsburgh. I’ll try to look inot them as well later on.
QUOTE] (I’m quite sure there is one in PA but I can’t locate its info right now; possibly one in WV?) [/QUOTE]
OK, so here is Pennsy info:
Williams Grove historical Steam Engine Assoc. www.wghsea.org
‘Run our Steam Locomotive’
I was almost positive I’d seen something on one in PA. The one in WV is very vague in my memory and I’m NOT at all sure that I’m even remembering right about one down there.
Try some alternate search terms and you’ll find additional programs. For example, Illinois Raiilway Museum has a long-standing guest engineer program called “Take the Throttle.”
One of the posts mentioned a pending FRA waiver petition for the Heber Valley guest engineer program (which was granted - see below). As info, the issue here is whether a “guest engineer” must be certified as a “student engineer” under FRA engineer certifcation rules (with minor exceptions, FRA rules require anyone operating a locomotive on a railroad subject to the engineer rules to have a certificate, even if the operator is under direct supervision). Most tourist railroads aren’t subject to FRA engineer certification rules, so this isn’t an issue for them. But it is an issue for tourist roads which operate over general system railroads (typically short lines), or are themselves general system railroads. Getting a waiver is a way to deal with this.
As mentioned above, the Heber Valley waiver was granted in September, 2009, subject to conditions. See attached link.
There’s also an earlier (2003) waiver involving the guest engineer program of the Michigan State Trust for Historic Trust andThe Saginaw Bay Railway, which was granted in November, 2003, subject to similar conditions. See attached:
"One other thing I’d be curious about - the reviews/ responses/ reactions to those who have done this kind of program, such as:
Did you like it ?
Did it live up to your expectations ?
Did you get enough ‘hands-on’ time ?
Would you go back and do it again, especially if you had enough money ?
Would you try it an another location/ another locomotive ?
What did you think of your instructor - good, bad, firnedly, gruff, etc. ?
Anything else you’d care to add ?"
(above from Paul’s post)
I’d like to post about my AWESOME experience at C & CV RR in Milford NY; they also go by Leatherstocking Railway Historical Society, thus their website of www.lrhs.com. They run from Milford NY to Cooperstown, NY (yes, THAT Cooperstown!)
Their program is 2.5 to 3 hours long. $350 but worth every penny, in my opinion! Trip
I suspect I know your instructor. Did he have “muttonchops?”
Never mind guest engineer - if we have the available space, I’ll be a student engineer in the next year or so. Several of our volunteers are “in line” ahead of me, so seat time will be hard to come by.
Yes, yes, that you do!! I was waiting to get in touch with you. Any chance you took out a load of passengers on Sat 10-17-09 the last long fall foliage run to Old Forge?? That’s how I first met John, he was on that run. But just ironic, when I showed up to drive, he was the teacher.
OK, now you got me jealous of your seat time. I’m gonna be down there in theirs every single minute that I can be, that’s for sure. It was the best day of my life. Good luck with all your adventures!
I was in Rochester that weekend for an EMS conference. If I had been working, you’d have seen me as part of the Thendara Local crew - I’m not usually on the Utica trains.
When the Gettysburg RR was owned by John Marino, we had a similar program available on our 16 mile Gettysburg-Biglerville run on the Gettysburg Scenic. The program was short-lived, not too long before I retired in '99, IIRC. I qualified on the GP’s and the F7’s while Rail America owned the line, and became GM when they sold the road to JM. Perhaps this is the “somewhere in Pennsylvania” mentioned by other posters…JWH
Hi and thank you for your information. Actually, I was able to locate the one I knew about; it’s at Williams Grove Hx Steam Assoc ( I think I have the name right here- it’s correct below) and I have posted about it. Again though, I do appreciate your input and I certainly am looking for any additions, deletions, and/or corrections at any point in time. Thanks to all!
I now have an addition to the list, which ironically came from an ad in Trains! It is at Florida RailRoad Museum. They are at www.FRRM.org. I believe their program runs for 1 hour; prices do vary and are by reservation only. The requirements are similar to most all the rest of the posted programs
If anyone knows of any other programs not listed or mentioned in this thread, won’t you please post them so that anyone interested might be able to participate? Thanks so much!
[Currently, Their website does not list an active program for a “Guest Engineer”, it does list in the Volunteer Jobs area a process whereby one may qualify as a FIREMAN and then another process to move from Firemen to ENGINEER.]
(Quite possibly they may be considering a guest engineer program in the future, but their website does not reference that possibility, now.)
Actually they do have it up but it’s hard to find. From the home page, scroll down under 'News" 24 Aug 2010, there’s a link there to click on ‘Guest Engineer Program.’ It does NOT appear in the listing on the left side of the home page. Any other questions I can help with, let me know.
