My wife bought the engineers seat on the 611 for my 70th birthday. Friday, May 19th, for 30 minutes, I got to run her up and back a section of track in Strasburg, PA. I sure there are a lot of folks that have done similar, or work for railroads as engineers on this forum, but for just an average Joe, it was the experience of a lifetime. Andy Warhol said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame in their life, I haven't got that yet, but this was a wonderful 30 minutes. Interesting to note, that this particular section of track being used on this day, or at least the roadbed it rests on, is the same one that Abraham Lincoln rode on his way to DC when he won the Presidency, and the same one his body was transported back on in his funeral train. The Strasburg RR facility is wonderful as is the PA Transportation Museum across the street. But, since this is Amish country, be prepared for one thing. In a scene right out of history, we watched a young man standing on the front of a wagon, with the reins in one hand of 4 horses abreast, not in tandem, under his control, as he traversed a field with the other hand on the wooden lever that controlled a valve on the back of the huge barrel on the wagon, spread a mixture of water and manure over a field. It must have been happening alot, as over the almost 3 days we were there, anywhere you went in town, smelled like manure. Finally got some pics off the phone, everybody knows what the 611 looks like so not posting those as they were all ground shots, but included a shot of the young man working the farm. My wife and I took the Strasburg RR train and had lunch on board the dining car and got this shot out the window. I had to edit her arm out of the pic as the blue of her sweater was reflecting in the glass.
One sad note about the experience. Due to FRA regulations based on train wrecks where engineers were using cellphones and other electronic devices, no electronics are permitted in the cab. That includes even a video camera like a Go-Pro on a mag mount stuck somewhere. They also do not provide any recordings for you to purchase, so bring someone along to photo and video from outside and commit everything else to memory. I did experiment with my cell phone and noticed that when I put it in the top pocket of my overalls, set to record video, and with the cover reversed to hide the screen, it would make a pretty decent recording, but my wife made me hand it over telling me I was not going to get kicked off the train. The 'train' consisted of a primary tender, an auxiliary tender, and a caboose.
