Re: Big Steam Engine Blues

OK, time for my two cents. Now let's see. Where did I put them? I thought I had two around here somewhere. Ah! There's one. Well it'll just have to do.
I agree agree agree......but......I have photos and memories of seeing 3751 sitting on a piece of track in the park there at San Bernardino, not black but mostly rusty red, leaking lagging and missing most of her small parts, surrounded by a tacky bent up chain link fence placed there to try to keep the vandals from writing any more of their gang sign love notes on the tank.
And, I have video of 3751 charging up through Sand Cut on the way to Bakersfield, video that I myself shot. I wasn't able to get a ticket for the California Limited but I was there and even sent the society at least as much as a ticket would be worth to help the cause.
For me who never got to see Santa Fe mainline steam in action (except for a vaguely remembered 3700 class 4-8-2 bringing my grandmother to San Diego on the 1 am local in 1949 or 50 - I was like four or five at the time) getting the chance to see this marvelous 4-8-4 at speed was worth it. Even though she only made a few trips, a generation who never got to witness her or her sisters in revenue service have been deeply enriched.
Sure, I'd love it if she ran Sunday excursions on the surf line but I thank God and all the guys who put her back together that I was able to see her up close and personal over Tehachapi those two days in 1991 and that I have the video from the other trips I was unable to catch.
So, hat's off to the guys who made it happen, for the 3751 and others. A big thank you to those who have rebuilt engines and found they had no place to run them. Some had promises of operation broken or denied, for any number of unquestionably justifiable reasons. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. But we have been blessed with some marvelous steam, much more than I ever dreamed possible.
OK, let me put this soap box away now.