10/13/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Last weekend I was in Abilene Kansas for their Heritage Day at the Dickinson County Historical Society.  That weekend, the steam engine is fired up to run the CW Parker carousel.  The engine is from 1901 and is original to the carousel and is the oldest operating CW Parker carousel.  I have helped operate it for the last 2 or 3 years now.  It was a good day and the firing went well, it has no draft door so keeping the fire even is a bit of a challenge.  It is fired with wood that is mostly hedge.  Someone there called it "Kansas Coal".  It is a quite hard wood.

04/14/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I took this image of the Abilene and Smoky Valley Railroad train as it headed out for a run this past October.  The locomotive, former Santa Fe 3415, is now out of service for a while as it is undergoing it's FRA inspection.  I will miss seeing it run this year.

01/14/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  It's a bitterly cold winter day here with a high predicted of -1F.  😨  Today's image goes back to a much warmer day at the beginning of October at the Abilene Heritage Days Festival.  The Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad was running some of it's last excursions for the year.  I captured this image as it was heading out for it's first run of the day.  Unfortunately, unless things go more quickly than expected, the railroad will not be operating this engine this year because it is due for it's tube replacement and FRA inspection.

 

12/3/23

 It's an interesting number date today.  😀  It's also Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image goes back to October and Abilene Kansas.  On October 7, I was in Abilene helping out at the Heritage Days Festival and the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad was operating it's steam locomotive 3415.  It's a former Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Pacific type locomotive which means it has a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement.  It was operating for it's last weekend before it has to undergo it's 15 year boiler rebuild as required by the FRA. This is it on the way back to the station when the locomotive is pulling the train.  When it heads out it is on the front of the train and then moves around to the rear for the return trip.

10/22/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  At Heritage Days in Abilene for the past 2 years, I have been firing this engine during the festival, for the most part.  I say, "for the most part" because when the steam train leaves, I go get video of that.  😄  Anyway,  the Abilene Museum has an original CW Parker carousel that normally runs on electricity but during the festival is run on steam.  This is the original engine to the carousel.  It had been separated from it at some point and then re-united years ago.  It's cool that it is still operable and that it is with it's original carousel.  Both were built right there in Abilene, Kansas.  We fire it on wood, mostly Hedge.  If interested, I have a short video of it operating on YouTube HERE.  I corrected the video, somehow it produced without sound and I did not realize it.  Weird. There is a bit more info on the engine and operation in the video description.

10/15/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  On October 7 I was in Abilene helping out at the Heritage Days Festival and the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad was operating it's steam locomotive 3415.  It's a former Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Pacific type locomotive which means it has a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement.  It was operating for it's last weekend before it has to undergo it's 15 year boiler rebuild as required by the FRA.  They thought that last year would be the last but found that the hours had been miscalculated and were able to operate for another year.  Amazingly enough to me, as much as I love trains and the ATSF railroad in particular, I have never ridden behind this engine, I have only photographed it.  I have a video of it HERE heading out for it's first of 2 runs and coming back from the second.

12/11/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I felt like sharing a B&W photo today as I love steam engines in B&W, it somehow makes them more dramatic to me.  This is the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad locomotive Santa Fe 3415 as it left on one of it's excursions during it's last weekend of operation for the year.  I took this image from some video I took.

10/16/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is another of the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad's Pacific type Santa Fe locomotive 3415.  I took this image of it while they were loading passengers.  It's a quite impressive engine.  Hopefully it is able to be back up and running in no longer than the 18 months predicted and maybe quicker.  15 year FRA inspections require the boiler tubes to be replaced which is rather expensive.  

I made another vide of it where I utilized both drone and regular video to show it getting ready and then leaving on one of it's 3 excursions for the day.  The video can be seen on Youtube HERE. 

12/5/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is of resored Santa Fe locomotive 3415, a Pacific type, 4-6-2 wheel arrangement.  It was built in 1919 and saw service regularly in Argentine Yard in Kansas City.  It was then donated to the city of Abilene in 1954 and sat in the city park for 40 years.  In 1996 the city donated it to The Abilene & Smoky Hill Railroad.  Restoration began in 2005 and has been in use on the railroad the last several years pulling excursion and dinner trains.  It was not running this year the Trail days because it is up for it's 15 year inspection.  This image is out of my archives as I took it back in 2009.

1/10/2021

 It's Steamy Sunday on the Blog and I am back in the archives again.  This is another view of the locomotive that was donated to the US by the British after WWII.  It was named the Eisenhower and here it is on display near the Eisenhower museum in Abilene Kansas for his 100th Birthday celebration in 1990.  the locomotive lives at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin.

12/20/20

 It's a triple digit day, 12/20/2020.  😊  It's also Steamy Sunday here on the Blog.  Today's image goes way back in the archives to General and Former President Dwight D Eisenhower's 100 Birthday Celebration in Abilene Kansas.  LNER ClassA4 steam Locomotive 60008 was brought in to Abilene for the celebration.  The locomotive was named after Eisenhower and donated to the US as a gift in 1946 after WWII.  It was retired in 1963 and moved to the National Railroad Museum in a suburb of Green Bay Wisconsin.  In 2012, the locomotive traveled to England to take part in Locomotion at the National Railroad Museum in York and stayed there for 2 years.  Before it returned it was refurbished cosmetically.