Re: SVRy: How fast did they go?

I noticed that too. Actually what is happening is that the outside rail has been moved over to the the wheels. The next step will be to strap a section of rail to the left (or upper) wheels, and then carefully roll the engine upright. There is a photo of the No. 50, in the wreck at Knights, showing this about to happen. There was a thread about that accident some time ago which included several photos, but the one I have is too large to post. Some day when I have nothing better to do I will reduce it to a reasonable size and post it.

BTW, Floyd Carpenter once said that when the SVRy still had section gangs they would sometimes get the passenger trains up to 50 MPH. This sounds a little far fetched to me, but Floyd was not given to gross exaggeration. The only places I know of where this might be possible would be Bowen Valley just west of Baker City, Sumpter Valley from Mason to McEwen, Whitney Valley, and Rafferty (or "Rapity") Flat between Whitney and Alder springs. On any of these places an engineer would need a heavy hand on the automatic air at the end of the straight.