Locomotive 630 on the turntable at East Chattanooga while passengers watch the operation of turning her.

It is only three large steps up from the platform to the cab of Number 630, a 114 ton steam locomotive. But as I mounted those steps, it was as if I had climbed back in time a full 113 years. At the top of the steps, I stepped into the cab of an operating steam locomotive that was a modern 2-8-0 Consolidation when she was delivered to the Southern Railroad in 1904.

After 48 years of faithful service pulling freight trains in Tennessee and elsewhere, she was “retired” in 1952. But this huge machine leads a charmed life. She escaped the scrapper’s torch, the fate of most of her brethren, by taking on a new life pulling excursion trains for a short line, a railway historical group and survives today as part of the Norfolk Southern Railroad’s 21^st Century Steam Program, a successful public relations effort by a major U.S. railroad.

Her home base is at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she pulls excursion trains several times a week and is lovingly cared for by the mostly-volunteer crew at the T.V.R.M.

My cab ride was a memorable experience. After greeting the engineer and fireman, I was given a short orientation around the cab ((Don’t touch this—it’s hot! Here are the throttle and brakes. Watch out for the swinging bell chord, etc.,) and invited to sit in the fireman’s seat on the left side of the cab. The engineer was in the right seat and the fireman stood beside me, between me and the engineer and reached back into the tender and shoveled coal into the red-hot firebox every few minutes to keep the 190 lbs. of steam pressure needed to operate the locomotive at peak power. He also adjusted one or the other of the two injectors that added water from the tank in the tender behind us into the raging maelstrom in the boiler to make steam. He also called the position of switches we approached to the engineer, who repeated back what he heard.

As we pulled away from the East Chattanooga Station with three cars full of passengers, the first thing I noticed is that the cab was a good bit warmer than the outside air when the firebox door was closed and downright H-O-T when it was opened.

The ride was fairly smooth, with the “chuff-chuff stack talk” beating a steady rhythm of four chugs to each revolution of the 56 inch driving wheels below and the locomotive gently swaying back and forth as she made her way down the undulating track. The level of noise was not excessive, more than in a car at highway speed but less than in the passenger compartment of a jet taking off.

The firebox of 630 was like a volcano when the clamshell doors were opened by the fireman.

On the way back to Grand Junction Terminal where the train originated, we crossed four bridges over a river, highway and a mainline railroad and went through one tunnel, under the Missionary Ridge civil war battlefield.  As we approached the tunnel, we shut the cab front door and windows that has been left ajar for ventilation to prevent coal smoke from flooding into the cab and choking the crew. As soon as we existed the tunnel, we opened things back up and the blast of outside air was cooling and welcome.

The locomotive whistle sounded its sonorous tones that echoed across the valley as we exited the tunnel, crossed roads at grade and spoke its special language to the crew who helped us switch in the yard and around and over a Y-shaped track to bring us back to Grand Junction Station’s platform, oriented the right way for the next trip.

What a fantastic ride in a living, breathing time machine that belched smoke and steam, panted as if she were alive and showed me in a very real way what it must have been like to be a locomotive engineer or fireman at the heyday of the steam locomotive in America.

You can experience the golden age of steam yourself at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga by either buying a ticket as a passenger on one of the many steam-drawn excursions the museum operates or arranging in advance to pay a special fee to ride in the cab and contribute to the upkeep of the vintage equipment owned by the museum. All aboard!

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A SunRail commuter train pulls out the station, whisking people to work in Orlando

Welcome To Florida SunRail

Florida is finally on a fast track for good rail service. SunRail, the greater Orlando commuter rail service opened May 1, 2014 and ridership has been good not only among commuters but also among tourists, shoppers and basketball game=goers on holidays and evenings. It has been so successful that plans are already in the works to extend it on both ends and to provide eventual service to the Orlando airport.

This railroad is both welcome and long overdue. It joins Tri-Rail, on Florida’s east coast (Palm Beach to Miami), as a regional solution to traffic congestion and a great way to get around. Tri-Rail is currently looking for funding to extend service into downtown Miami instead of the outskirts.

The new state-of-the-art railroad cars have tables, free wi-fi, power outlets, clean restrooms and comfortable seats. The double decker cars also provide a great view. Does your automobile have all that? Mine doesn’t and it burns $3.77 premium gas to boot (today’s local “discount station” price”) and holds five at maximum but two can ride in comfort. According to SunRail, it costs about $35o in fuel to run the whole train on a 63 mile round trip, with capacity for hundreds of passengers, each one having a lot more room and amenities than they would if they were riding in my BMW 328i coupe.

So welcome to Florida, SunRail. We’re glad to have you and wish you hundreds of thousands of satisfied and green riders. Now Floridians who appreciate train travel have commuter trains just like New York, Chicago and Paris.

We also have several Amtrak trains for long distance travel. I’ve taken one recently from Tampa to Jacksonville on business and it was great. I had a nice dinner in the diner and worked on my laptop at a table in the lounge car in true comfort. And it was on time too.

Florida’s Governor committed a massive error when he turned away a firm commitment of $2.3 billion (yes, billion, with a b) in Federal funds three years ago for a high speed rail system that was shovel ready. He even ignored a promise by a major rail system builder to make up any deficits the system might incur in operation. Imagine how many jobs were left uncreated and how convenient for tourists to take a high speed train from the airport to see the Mouse.

Hope may be coming down the track, however. All Aboard Florida, a private company that is owned by the same Jacksonville to Miami Florida East Coast Railroad that once operated a fleet of passenger trains, has proposed to build and operate a private passenger rail system from Miami to Orlando. It is already in operation using existing tracks between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale and will soon be extened to Miami. Also in the works is a a new right of way down the center of an existing toll road from the East Coast to Orlando airport. Start-up is promised for 2019. The company has already completed stations in South Florida.

We hope it happens and we’ll certainly ride the line and write a Welcome All Aboard Florida blog when the full system opens.

Since it is not depending on state or federal funding, it seems to be “Governor proof”and will not meet the same fate as the almost-launched high-speed rail system in Florida Let’s hope the NIMBY ememies of modern rail transport will be foiled this time.

By way of disclosure, I have written a feature article on SunRail which was published in the July, 2015 issue of Trains, the national railroad magazine.

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Rail Travel

There is something special about railroads and travel by train. From riding tourist trains in an open car at less than ten miles per hour while being pelted by cinders through today’s high speed trains that zip through the European countryside at 220 miles per hour, railroads and trains have captured our interest and imagination. Best of all, on the best of trains, travelers can sip a glass of Champagne and gaze through picture windows in the lounge car as the train speeds them to their destination.

Why has the romance and practicality of the rails persisted into the 21^st century, despite intense competition from automobiles and airplanes? Why is it that travel by rail continues to be the preferred land conveyance for legions of smart travelers and urban commuters?

Is it because of the center-city to center-city convenience of rail travel?

Could it be because passenger trains have large and comfortable seats, roomy aisles and huge windows compared to an airplane?

Might it be because railroad terminals are just less of a hassle than airports?

Is it because of the fascinating towns and countryside the train traverses, offering a constantly-changing tableau of the land and its people?

Perchance is it that fellow travelers on a train tend to come out of their shells and chat with perfect strangers?

Might it be that many trains still have real dining cars that are moving restaurants with sit-down dinners, great service and often gourmet-quality food and drink?

Or could it be that overnight trains still offer sleeping accommodations, thereby saving the need to get a hotel and allowing travelers to arrive at their destinations refreshed?

Is it because train travel is usually less expensive than air travel or renting a car and driving and nobody charges you to bring a couple of bags with you?

Might it be because nobody frowns at you when you get out of your seat, enter the roomy aisles and stroll around the train?

Truly, the answer is all of these. Travel by rail is more popular than it has been in decades and a golden age of passenger train travel is dawning in some places. All the progressive industrialized nations of the world (except for the U.S. A., alas) have sophisticated high-seed passenger rail systems and are expanding them as quickly as budgets allow. Even in the USA, Amtrak, despite its seemingly-permanent funding peril thanks to a short-sighted Congress, is setting ridership records.

The Romance And Excitement Of The Rails
You don’t have to travel on trains to enjoy them. The global rail network has attracted millions of enthusiasts who love, watch them go by and learn about them. Some, like Johnnie Cash or Arlo Guthrie, even sing about them.

Train travelers worldwide can spot people at trackside camera in hand and radio scanner handy. In the U.S.A., we call them railfans and they even keep several enthusiast magazines in business. In North America, they have transformed locations like Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the Cajon Pass in Southern California, Durango, Colorado, Canada’s kicking Horse Pass, Folkston, Georgia, metropolitan Chicago and elsewhere into iconic gathering places for the celebrants of steel wheel upon steel rail. Scores of short lines still haul freight and passengers with refurbished trains from a bygone era. Refurbished railroad stations like St. Louis Union Station or The Chatanooga Choo Choo complex, railroad themed restaurants and hotels are popping up around North America. Rail museums (many with operating steam locomotives far older than the volunteers who run and lovingly maintain them) are major tourist attractions. Even some big mainline freight railroads like Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific maintain small fleets of historic locomotives and passenger cars and operate mainline steam-pulled excursions for public relations purposes. England, too, is a hotbed of historic rail excursion operations and excursions and museums can be found in Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere. The romance of the rails still pulls children of all ages trackside and on board.

Disclosure: The host of  this web site was bitten by the railfan bug when he looked out the window of his elementary school and saw trains run by and has been hooked ever since.

The breathtaking view of the Front Range of the Canadian Rockies as seen from the dome on the observation car of the Canadian.

      
A train full of Tropicana orange  juice heads through Tampa on the way to New Jersey.

By Train Along The St. Lawrence River

By Jeffrey R. Orenstein, Ph.D., Simply Smart Travel

October, 2015: As our taxi pulled in to the train station in Quebec City, our about-to-commence train trip from Quebec City to the Charlevoix region of Quebec was already off to a spectacular start. Right behind the station platform. the mighty Montmorency Falls as the river of its namesake tumbled into the St. Lawrence from a height of 275 feet, the highest in Quebec and 98 feet higher than Niagara Falls. The station afforded an amazing view of the cataract and was so close to the falls that the roar and mist from the falls were hard to ignore.

As impressive as they were, the falls were just a hint of scenic vistas about to unfold out the windows of the train. As we settled in to our European-style short two-car train, we found the seats to be comfortable and the windows were large and clean.

The journey toward Baie St. Paul, two and a half hours distant down the St. Lawrence, began with a passage through suburban Quebec City. The view of roads, homes and shops soon gave way to incredible vistas of the St. Lawrence River, sometimes mere feet away from the rails. For long stretches of the journey, the railroad makes a leisurely passage along stretches of the St. Lawrence’s undeveloped northern bank that are otherwise inaccessible by road. After a stop at St. Anne de Beaupre and its impressive basilica (located adjacent to the station), the rain heads into the wilderness in earnest. Occasionally, we pass through some very small towns and glimpse into the back yards of riverfront cabins.

The train passes through one tunnel and offers a constantly-unfolding view of the great river. The surrounding mountains and the glimpses of passing oil tankers and an occasional cruise ship using the river as a water highway between the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence Seaway are truly extraordinary.

t the Quebec City Train station

Baie St. Paul, our destination, is a delightful and picturesque town of 7,332 on the St. Lawrence. Where the Gouffre River flows into it. It is the seat of the Charlevoix Regional County Municipality and is filled with hotels (including the beautiful hotel Le Germain, right at the train station), art galleries, shops and restaurants.

The railroad continue to nearby Malabie which is the jump-off point for the Massif of Quebec ski areas and whale watching cruises. Rail shuttles from Baie St. Paul to Malabie operate year-round. During the summer months, the railroad operates at least two round trips from Qubec City to Charlevoix daily. Food and drink are available on the train.

If you enjoy great scenery and want to see a remarkable stretch of the St. Lawrence valley from a perspective not available by road, take this train next time you are in Quebec City. Although you can the round trip in one day, I recommend that you stay at least one night in Baie St. Paul and enjoy a stroll among the galleries and a gourmet dinner.

For information on the train, go to http://www.quebecregion.com/en/guided-train-tour/charlevoix-light-rail-transit/ or http://reseaucharlevoix.com/index.php/?___store=english___from_store=english

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