18 is locked in the engine house as its 1472 slowly ticks away. I think she has about 4-5 years left before inspection. I would put good money on her flue time running out before she sees a fire again. In addition to no longer having any steam qualified crews in ALA, The current management in ALA is very anti-steam. I saw this when I worked there. He did all he could to play down the significance of running the 18 and did nothing to promote a "steam train ride" to La Veta. He did not understand why anyone would be interested in a steam locomotive, especially when there were Santa Fe Super Domes on the property. He LOVED his dome cars......(gack - we need a "barfing" smilie). Nothing will ever be done with the other LS&I engine, nor with the 1744.
IPH was noted for having ADD concerning long term projects. They'd get real hot on an idea, then a while later the big man would lose interest and they would be off chasing another rabbit down a hole somewhere. At one time IPH wanted a steam locomotive on every property they had. And, they wanted a historically accurate one (a Santa Fe one For Texas, an SP one for Arizona, etc.). That had Butler and I searching around for stuff that would fulfill that program. But, the winds changed, and IPH started down its road toward insolvency, and the idea was dropped. It got replaced by the Pullman Dream that the world wanted to "ride the trains of its youth", which meant E-units and streamlined passenger cars (Santa Fe domes fit into that nicely). It was explained to me that this is what the country wanted, because EVERYONE had that memory. I countered with "Well, I came from Phoenix. The SP's Sunset Limited came through 3 times a week at 630am and 1100pm. So I saw it maybe three times. The trains I grew up with were painted Yellow with a black stripe and were pulled by a 1920's steam locomotive with a goofy diamond stack...."
That didn't set too well.
The SLRG runs its concert trains to Fir on weekends. Rarely do they run to La Veta, which is by far the best part of the trip. BTW in La Veta, is a nice replica of the Jacks Cabin Water Tank we built just before I went to Texas. It was built using the plans in my never-built HOn3 Simpson Models kit. It was never completed and never filled a tender, and never will.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2017 10:07AM by Earl.
