Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

I’m glad you were able to chase I. It’s the last of an era. The rebuild story is really fun. I followed it from start to finish. My uncle was a steam engineer for many years. He used to take me down to the yard on week ends I still remember the ride on the turntable. All the dials and gages were a complete mystery to me at that age I had my Lionel O  gage but it was nothing like the real thing. He was in a big crash in North Dakota caused by miss calculation at the switching station. The conductor threw him out just before the crash but the conductor was killed. I remember my mom and dad driving down to the scene. There were wheel axel assemblies all over th fields it’s amazing the engine did not explode. Many years later my aunt gave me a copy of the newspaper account then the court testimony  they were put in a bad position with no options. Apparently the siding they were switched to was just too short to let the other train go by. No matter which way they went their train was too long and the oncoming train was also too long and there was only one track so they were stuck some of one of them went into a small creek bed too that’s where the conductor was killed it was never determined why he didn’t jump out. I was too young to understand the proceedings

Byron

Buron