Here is todays photo set, prelim hydro test, first @ 125%... http://nmslrhs.org/Photos/2017/05-06/index.html Regards, Kevin PS retired six months now, not dead yet, Grin.
Any updates? It has been a few months. I heard a rumor the boiler is now legally licensed and ready to fire.
Here's a link to their home page. Scroll down to the last few photo sessions. They have the drawbars installed between the engine and tender. http://2926.us/Photos/photos.php
Hoping some day we will hear again from Kevin. That personal touch helped make following this process even more interesting!
"When it comes to the designs of Diesel power, however, most rail enthusiasts, and especially the photographic-minded among them, are baffled and saddened. There is nothing significant of action in the passing of the Denver Zephyr except an envoi in the form of a cloud of dust and the corpse of an occasional chicken immolated on the altar of speed, and nothing so cheers the traditionalist as the spectacle of the Super Chief being assisted up the hillsides by one of the Santa Fe's Northerns, all guts and exhibitionism and smoke, for all the world like a 1910 Pope-Hartford (automobile) trailing shamefully home behind a team of plow horses."--Lucius Beebe, High Iron: A Book of Trains Was there ever an iron horse so magnificent as the nearly 6000 horsepower, half a million pound, 120 mile per hour Santa Fe 2900 Class? I wish I had a copy of the book I read years ago which had an account of an incident in the history of the newly expanded post-war Super Chief. Three out of its four shiny new F-3 units had laid down, and the train wound up behind a Northern. I still remember the description of that 4-6-4 hauling the express, dead diesels and all, across the Kansas prairie at well over the 90 mph speed limit, with her crew laughing and hurling insults at those newfangled growlers.
Those early diesels were the worst. I remember what my great grand-dad said of the first FT's. "Those F-units". A hog head for the Santa Fe. Think about it. I can't repeat what he said here. The F stood for exactly what you think it stood for. Any questions? No. Good you got it. He said of the first FT's, we made more water stops to fill the radiators then we ever did to fill the tender. Enjoy or not what you like about railroading.