Re: Dry Gulch USA Locomotive Roster

Hi John,

A friend and I were just down there as guests of the train crew a little over a week ago. They are quite an impressive operation. The operating engine roster is as follows.

Porter 43

Porter 7

Crown 552

There is also former White Pass & Yukon 2-6-2 #4 which has been steamed up a couple of times for testing, but still requires quite a bit of finish work before being ready for full operation. However, as mentioned, it is for sale with no further work being done at this point by Dry Gulch. You can find several posts on this engine by doing a forum search here.

All of the engines are set up to burn propane. Before you all roll your eyes, let me tell you I was VERY impressed. This isn't your junky Crown stick burner shooting at the tube sheet. The burners used are huge fan shaped jobs sitting down in the firebox and they fill it up completely. The engines will maintain 150psi upgrade loaded with a 3/4" injector running the entire way. They also pull off the liquid side of the propane tanks and use a vaporizer to prevent freezing the tanks from the massive draw put on them from the fire.

They have three open "summertime" coaches that they use for the Church camp, and eight enclosed winter coaches used for their extremely popular Christmas Train event during the holidays.

The railroad is the rail and hardware from the former Kings Dominion Park railroad and was donated to them when they bought the Crown 552 from KD. It is about a mile and a half in length and is very twisty with steep grades. In fact the very sharp corners is the reason WP&Y 4 is for sale, it will never be able to negotiate their railroad. There had been plans to make the changes needed to allow her to run when first purchased, but after consulting with contractors, the track changes needed would prove excessively costly.

This is a first rate volunteer run operation and the people are some of the nicest you will meet anywhere. Keep in mind, they are NOT a public park most of the year, and are only open to the general public during their Christmas Train event. The rest of the year it is a youth church camp run by Church on the Move out of Tulsa. If anyone remembers the "Gospel Bill" kids television show from the late 80's/early 90's, where Gospel Bill was the sheriff of Dry Gulch, this is the place! And Gospel Bill is Pastor Willie George who is head pastor of Church on the Move.

The town of "Dry Gulch" is just as impressive as the railroad with buildings made to look straight out of the old west with amazing attention to detail and theme.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

Andrew Dean
Springfield, MO
Engineer, Silver Dollar City RR