Today was a glorious day for double-headed steam action. 1392 is performing brilliantly and gets better all the time; the crew are all very proud of her and how she’s doing. Not bad for a girl that was built ten years after man’s first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903. She was in service when the Empire entered the Great War in 1914 and had already been in service for 26 years when Canada declared war in 1939!…
Not many pictures today; your intrepid reporter was firing the locomotive. It was a wonderful trip. We had a good stiff climb out of Stettler behind 41. After the first few miles I settled in and got comfortable and the trip to Big Valley was wonderful. At big valley two more antique tractors were arriving. They are amazing machines and the paintwork on them is stunning. Seeing them all running on the 3rd is going to be a great experience. At Big…
Today 1392 and APR 41 did their first double header to Big Valley. After some routine maintenance and a thorough scrub and polish, 1392 proudly backed onto the train to lead it to Big Valley. The trip was outstanding; the passengers were thrilled. A large convoy of cars chased the train from crossing to crossing taking pictures. Today was the culmination of nine months of hard work by the dedicated volunteers of the ARM steam crew. Well done.
On Saturday one of the museums’ steam crew (and VP), Joel Mullan, went for a familiarization trip on the Alberta Prairie Railway to learn the route for firing 1392 during Rails and Tales: At the end of April a number of us from the Alberta Railway Museum went down to the station at Big Valley to attend a rules class and exam to get APR rules cards and make sure we were all on the same page as the APR…
Today 1392 was loaded on a truck for her trip to Stettler for Rails and Tales. The operation took over ten hours owing to the heavy rain last night, saturating the loading area. Many members of the press, a documentary filmmaker, bloggers, and museum staff were all on hand for the big event. Both locomotive and tender are loaded on trailers set to make the trip to Stettler tomorrow. Tickets are still available for double-headed steam excursions at railsandtales.ca Read more…
Today the ARM steam crew of Terry Wolfe, Ted Vangunst, Leon Belov, and Joel Mullan fired up 1392. She had been brought up to pressure yesterday so the crew had a headstart as she retained around 40 PSI overnight allowing operation of the atomizer and blower to bring her back up to pressure this morning. A few problems were found along the way, but they were all resolved quickly and without too much difficulty. After lunch 1392 got a clearance and…
A little bit of history on Northern Alberta Railways #73: As many of you know, it is the only surviving Northern Alberta Railways steam locomotive. It was built in 1927 by the Canadian Locomotive Co. in Kingston, ON, for the Edmonton, Dunvegan, and British Columbia Railway, a precursor to the NAR. In April of 1964, it was donated to the Canadian Railroad Historical Association, Rocky Mountain branch by Stelco Edmonton (now AltaSteel). On December 21, 1967 the Alberta Pioneer Railway…
