I just arrived back from what was probably the most insane trip I've ever taken. Two friends and I decided that we'd make a trip to the Steam Railroading Institute's Train Festival 2009. We also decided that to save money, we'd be taking this trip by car.
So Tuesday afternoon, I left my office in Albany, headed to Saugerties to grab my friend Rob, then headed down to New Jersey to get our friend Matt. At Matt's place, we transferred our stuff into his 1992 Buick Roadmaster wagon (a.k.a. the Road Monster), and headed out. After leaving New Jersey, we drove through the night across Pennsylvania and most of the way across Ohio, to a little town called Fostoria.
Fostoria is an interesting town. And by interesting, I mean that it's probably one of the most awful places in the country to live. There's pretty much nothing in the town, with the exception of the THREE double-track main lines that pass through it. On an average day, Fostoria will see 100 or more trains pass through. We arrived at 5:15 AM and stayed only 3 hours, but caught 18 trains passing through, including one made entirely of Triple Crown bimodal RoadRailer trailers, which I'd never seen before.
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The rest of Wednesday consisted of driving the rest of the way to Owosso, MI, where the festival was being held, finding our hotel in Flint, MI, and recovering from our ridiculously long drive.
Thursday morning, we got up at about 6:00, got dressed quickly, and headed back to Owosso. After breakfast at Tim Horton's (why are there none of these around here!?), we went over to the station to get in line to board our excursion train, pulled by the Southern Pacific GS-4 #4449 "Northern", the only operating streamlined locomotive remaining anywhere in the world, which is painted in the SP's beautiful "Daylight" color scheme. The weather was absolutely terrible while we were waiting to board, but as the train traveled to Alma, the skies brightened, and it turned out to be a rather nice day. After a three hour layover in Alma, we got back on the train and headed back to Owosso, with a nice photo run-by in the middle.
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After arriving back in Owosso, we looked around outside the festival to see what else was there, but didn't go in, since there was only about half an hour left that day. Running near the edge of the property was a 7.5" miniature railroad line, which had some neat equipment. After leaving, we headed down to Durand, MI to see the old station there and see whatever trains we could.
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Friday morning, we headed out to Owosso again, this time to actually go to the festival. In the yard, we saw the other 7 steam locomotives that were at the festival. There were sister "Berkshire" 2-8-4 engines, Nickel Plate #765 and Perre Marquette #1225, three 0-4-0T tank engines, Flagg Coal #75, Little River Railroad #1, and Viscoe #6, the smallest 2-6-4 in the US, Little River Railroad #110, and the newest steam locomotive in the world, the hand-built near-perfect recreation of the circa 1860's Central Pacific #63 "Leviathan".
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Also at the festival were several model railroads, including an 'L'-gauge layout owned by the Michigan LEGO Users Group, who had their own version of the SP 4449.
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In the afternoon Friday, we drove up to Alma to chase the 4449 back to Owosso and get some nice pictures of it and its beautiful trainset in operation.
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Saturday, after checking out of the hotel and doing some shopping, we headed up to Alma again, this time to chase the train being pulled by the Nickel Plate #765. This trip was supposed to be behind Perre Marquette #1225, but apparently one of its superheater pipes burst and it was unable to operate, so the 765 took over for it.
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And that was it. We loaded back up into the Road Monster and set off to return home. We made a quick detour to see Norfolk Southern's Bellevue, OH yard, and arrived back at Matt's at about 6 AM on Sunday.
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