Railroad Forums
SPENCER — For the first time since 1994, you can ride behind a real coal-fired steam locomotive on mainline tracks in North Carolina when the N.C. Transportation Museum hosts passenger train excursions June 16 and 17. Part of the 21st Century Steam program, the trips are being offered in cooperation with Norfolk Southern Corp. and the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.
The 11/2-hour round trip journeys will be offered each day from the N.C. Transportation Museum to the town of Barber and back. Power will be a genuine Southern Railway steam locomotive, No. 630, built in 1904 and once used to pull freight trains in North Carolina.
These will be the only such trips offered in North Carolina in 2012 and are not expected to be repeated.
Trips will be offered both Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m., 12:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Coach seating is $35 for adults and $25 for children ages 3-12. Children ages 2 and under who will ride on the lap of a parent or guardian do not need a ticket.
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A bonus trip is scheduled June 23. Passengers can ride along on a one-way trip from Spencer to Winston-Salem with a bus trip back to the museum. This trip departs from the museum at 10 a.m., with arrival in Winston-Salem at 2 p.m. The train will again be pulled by the SR No. 630 with a diesel engine assisting. The $80 fare includes a box lunch and return shuttle to museum.
The 630 is a Consolidation-type (2-8-0) locomotive built at the Richmond, Va., works of American Locomotive Co. The locomotive operated throughout the Southern Railway system, including the famous Murphy Branch from Asheville to Murphy. Southern Railway used the locomotive from 1968 to 1977 on excursions, and TVRM concluded a 10-year restoration in 2011 at the Soule Shops complex in Chattanooga.
wurlitzer153 wrote:Foam season begins this weekend, everybody!I'm assuming it will be coming up thru Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, Charlotte, and to Spencer next week?
Today the 630 made her run down to Atlanta from Chattanooga in preparation for the weekend's operations. From there it's on to Spencer, NC.
Gadfly wrote:It sounds like Monday and Tuesday, overnight in Greenville. Norfolk Southern Steam Schedule
I'm assuming it will be coming up thru Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, Charlotte, and to Spencer next week?
GF
Max Toomey (sic?), avid rail buff, who passed away last year would absolutely LOVE this! He'd be right there if he could just to see this! ) of 64, and it seems just like yesterday.
"They" say (whoever "they" is) that this will be a real humdinger of a celebration---probably one of the biggest events in the Transportation Museum's history. The museum people say that Norfolk Southern has really gone all out to make this a great historical event for both the company AND the museum! After all, there "must" be something TO it since NS went to great lengths to assemble all the representative locomotives in one place--something that is not likely to occur anywhere else. Lots of strings got pulled for this one!
