What an irony.
CA asks nee demands ULEV and then runs these smoking godzillas through the nature?

Nice trains. Ever been to Lancaster, PA?

 

Nice shots!

 

True, although the unit can be run in a fashion it does not put up a lot of black smoke. Having followed it in and out of L.A., a smoke plume rarely occurred. There's also a diesel locomotive tied into the consist to assist on the grades.

If it's any consolation, it's taken years/decades to get this thing to appear in CA. Other steam outtings in the state are also extremely rare. I was told this will be the last time the UP 844 appears here, as her boiler is due for a rebuild and UP would not be able to legally run it here until that's done.

Never been to Lancaster, PA, but the photos I've seen of what's there are mouth-watering.

 

The black smoke in my pics were done for show. It looks cooler that way, but in reality that means the engine is burning super inefficiently. Good engineers will NOT have a black smoke cloud coming out of their engines.

 

Truth!

Man, I had no idea anyone else gave two flips about steam locomotives. I grew up around the things...literally. My dad has video of me at 2 months riding on one he made. I should state my dad has made numerous steam-powered scale locomotives in our garage machine shop. Smallest being 800lbs, largest being 3-4 tons! The Daylight I've been on numerous times; such a timeless paint scheme. But you hadn't seen anything unless you've been next to a "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4 :


Here's a scal model of the "Big Boy" my father made for Tom Miller in OR :



Oh, forgot to mention...my dad was guest engineer for a Durango and Silverton trip about 10yrs ago. Wish I wasn't in college at the time to have done it with him.

 

^ The scale model is amazing. Did it get run there at "Train Mountain" outside Kalamath Falls? (scale looks a little large for it)
Took my son there some odd 5 years ago and that place was pretty cool as well.

We don't have too any big engines up here in the Northwest. Mostly Lumber haulers like Makidos and Shays. One heck of a graveyard up at Snoqualmie falls WA, Think I recall seeing a Pacific rusting away along with 10 or 15 other smaller units.

 

looks like the back to the future train part 3 =0)