The following was published today (7/17/09) on the Trains News Wire. http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=5334 New plan for Sunday's 4449 steam trip from Chicago to Durand Published: Friday, July 17, 2009 MINNEAPOLIS - After a round of negotiations considering several alternative routes, an operating plan has been determined for Sunday's steam excursion behind Southern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 4449 that will see the steam locomotive pull the Amtrak special train for part of the July 19 journey, a source tells TRAINS News Wire. The excursion train will run from Chicago to Durand, Mich., as planned Sunday, on the normal Amtrak Blue Water route, but the steam locomotive will not be added until Michigan City, Ind., on the portion of the route owned by Amtrak, owing to a clearance issue near the Englewood interlocking on Chicago's south side. The plan that has been developed, which was current as of Friday afternoon, will see the 4449 cut off from its train as intended at the conclusion of Saturday's trip from Minneapolis to Chicago over BNSF. The steam engine will be removed at Amtrak's Chicago coach yard prior to the train's arrival into Union Station. After servicing, the 4449 will run light from Chicago to Michigan City, Ind., using a route involving the BNSF Railway (Chicago to Congress Park), and Indiana Harbor Belt and Belt Railway of Chicago (to Rock Island Junction, near the Illinois-Indiana State Line on Norfolk Southern's Chicago Line, NS from there to Porter, Ind., and then Amtrak from Porter to Michigan City. Sunday's excursion train will depart Chicago Union Station behind the Amtrak P42 that has been traveling with the train as protection power from Portland, Ore. Upon arrival at Michigan City, SP 4449 will be attached up front, to lead the train the rest of the way east to Durand, where passengers will disembark. The excursion train will follow Amtrak's Blue Water route to Battle Creek, Mich. (using Amtrak and NS trackage), then change to CN for the duration of the trip to Durand, with a planned mid-afternoon arrival. Short line Great Lakes Central will move the train from Durand to Owosso for the following weekend's steam festival. The engine is bound for Train Festival 2009 in Owosso.
The background of this is the usual somebody didn't do his job scenario. I'll bet Steve Sandberg and Don Crimmin have spent tons of hours on the phone to make this happen. No more comment till I know more. :tb-sad:
Jim, it's possible that the clearance issue came to light as a result of the mods needed to get her into the 261 shed. Many folks probably don't realize how big 4449 actually is......?
Include me as one of those folks - I was shocked at how large it actually was sitting in the 261 shop.
Well, all of the self-proclaimed experts on Trainorders have come up with several reasons, none of which I will acknowledge until I have heard from the guys who negotiated the new route. "Too heavy," "Too wide," "Rocking side to side." :tb-confused:
A friend of mine who works for Amtrak was involved in the conference calls regarding the planning of the moves in and out of Chicago. There were issues with a bridge around Englewood, and NS said "no" to stopping the train on their railroad to add the 4449 out of Chicago station. So it goes to Michigan City by itself. There were also issues with 4449 running in the lead in cab signal territory in Michigan since the 4449 has no cab signals (gee, did anyone call the FRA for a waiver, and it's now 4:30 on Friday afternoon?), how servicing would be handled in Battle Creek since no one from CN was on these calls, and there were questions if 4449 could make the wye at Durand onto GLC trackage. I was in the middle of doing something else while my friend was telling me all this. So I don't remember a lot of specifics. There was a lot of head-shaking (in disbelief) and laughing about some of the clueless people that are in charge of special things such as this at Amtrak. Speed restrictions, what constitutes a steam locomotive (is the tender considered part of the locomotive or is it a car attached to it?) calculating weight for bridges based on the previous question. It went on and on.
I was the trainmaster/engineer pilot for the Wisconsin Central out of Minneapolis on the first and many subsequent runs of the 261 in and out of the Twin Cities. I can only say that most discussions (and correctly so) between any excursion operation and Amtrak/ freight railroad can be very emotional. One party wants to show off their fine locomotive and equipment and in order to do so requires a lot of non-railroader's with no sense of safety to occupy the property to see and ride it. The other property takes a lot of precautions, prepares for serious incidents, needs to have a lot of supervisiors on hand for security/safety and generally tries to protect their company from harm. Both Amtrak and freight railroads become very, very concerned as to the potential liability that a steam excursion operation brings to their property because of the general public's overall lack of common sense and "quick to sue" mentality. Any time these locomotives travel outside of a museum railroad it is a tremendous relief when they have departed the common carrier property. I understand that Doyle McCormack, Steve Lee and some museums are good operators and know how to handle any problems which comes their way, smoothly. But I can't say the same for others. I always looked forward to handling these kinds of trains and most were rewarding. But the feeling of relief and exhaustion afterward was often more satisfying. You just wanted to sleep for days. Barry
4449 in Kalamazoo We have been told that 4449 is due in Kalamazoo about 1:00pm today. Can anyone verify this? Estimated eta.
Photos? I shot a short video but did any one get any photos yet? Here is a link Click here to my video (you may have to wait for it just up loaded it)
Fredstout, welcome to Trainboard! The twitter from the 4449 train stated about 20 minutes ago that she was running slow and just passed Three Oaks, so I'm sure she will be late into Kalamazoo. The best info is at the SP4449 website, where you can read the twitter as it is updated:http://www.SP4449.com :tb-biggrin:
