tennessee valley railroad photo charter

so let's get down to it, the real reason i was in chattanooga in mid march, and freezing my butt off monday, that had a wind that just cut through everyone. this was the second time i was able to ride behind double header steam, that's right 2 locomotives, on the same train, all day long, both days. the stars of our show
southern railway 630, a 2-8-0 Ks-1 consolidation class steam locomotive, built in february 1904 at the richmond works of the american locomotive company, (alco), of schenectady fame
southern railway 4501, a 2-8-2 mikado class steam locomotive, built in october 1911, by baldwin locomotive works

first photo of the day, some depot runbys utilizing the wy tracks just past the museum depot


630 led both days, something not in the original plans, but i'll explain with tuesdays photos, obscure movie reference, i love the smell of coal smoke in the morning


lot's of nice smoke, wonder how the firemen feel about firing for a photo charter, and both these are hand fired, no auto stoker here

 

and a little suggestion of motion, taken from sanctioned territory, the wheelchair load ramp, authentic southern railway caboose



and pete lerro, the charter organizer had a lot of old cars for this charter

 

and our next ruby spot, we actually walked to this one, a bridge over chickamauga creek, not a 1/4 mile from the depot



that's the original alignment to the left, washed out in if i remember the signs 1927, at which time the tracks and bridge were raised to avoid another catastrophic flood



and we were starting to get clearing skies, and it did warm up a little



last bridge for now, when i next upload we will be moving to the missionary ridge tunnel

 

so we have ridden the train a little, very little since the tvrm owned line is only 3 miles long, to missionary ridge tunnel, this is an area very rich in civil war history, some famous battle action took place near here, chickamauga national battlefield is only a mile or so away, we rode right by it on the train and could see many of the monuments



i love it when a steam train blasts out of a tunnel, dragging all that smoke along with it, and no, no crazy inside the tunnel shots on this line, although i doubt the crew likes it by the 3rd runby



more tunnel shots from sundays outing to come, we have moved to east chattanooga, site of an old station and their shops, the soule shops, named after one of the founders of tvrm, the daily crew shot, the shadow contrast is fierce right now

 

so here we are, at east chattanooga, the shops are off to my right and behind me, and would you believe i completely forgot to take any photos of the shop building?? i guess i went total newby on this, probably because a night shoot is scheduled for tonight at this location, which due to the cold, by the scheduled time of 9:00 pm i was too weary to attend. so i'll have to get them the next time. even though we are in full sun, not a cloud in the sky, it is only about 40, and the wind chill is probably around 25 or so, it was never warm, sunny south, face to the sun type warm, but hey, i have done this in colder weather, the reading & northern 425 charter of 2 years ago comes to mind, -4 at 6:00 am to start the charter if i remember correctly. and i must be crazy since i am eagerly awaiting the ticket sales for my next lerro productions charter, pere marquette 1225 in owasso michigan, in january, ya think that might be cold??





there have been a few events with 3 operating steam engines, no more than that to my knowledge, michael might know better than me, imagine how cool it must have been to have a yard full of them, of course today some of the purists in this very specialized piece of photography hobby would be unsatisfied, because after all those locomotives would not have been historically correct together. but 2 with enough yard allows the very cool side by side



and a couple of slow speed runbys at the station to allow some 4501 in the lead photos



4501 creeps onto the turntable, and it is at a creep, it barely fits, in fact there is a little overhang on the pilot as we will see, and here is where the first mechanical problem occurs, 4501 is light on water at this point from runbys, and wasn't in position to be serviced before this, so it was nose heavy and the turntable hung up, eventually they had to bring pout the front end loader and push it the last 2 feet or so to get lined back up, so the crew could back off, service and then turn a properly balanced locomotive



now you can see the overhang, and there was no problem turning some of the way, to position relative to sun angle for some rosie the riveter shots coming up, it was when they went to go fully around that we had the hangup

 

so the rosie's are here, they actually have been with us all day, this is the first set piece of the day with them, these two young ladies are ww2 reenactors that pete has used before, apparently they have quite extensive wardrobes, as you will see on tomorrows photos, they came up from atlanta and stayed with us 2 full days, and posed out in a cold wind today, as i said before, it never really got all that comfortable on monday





and they even have the props , period correct, which really adds a nice touch to these posed pieces



as a person interested for years in ww2 history, deep enough to have read all 8 volumes of samuel morrison's naval history of world war 2, all the volumes of churchill's memoirs, all of steven ambrose's volumes ( band of brothers), this is cool for a pose, women and elderly men played a huge part in our eventual success in world war 2, by late 1944 britain had absolutely no men left to send to war, at all, and roosevelt and marshall were actually seriously considering drafting women into all the noncombatant ratings.

 

back out on the line, tunnel runbys again, pete put it to a vote due to the hangup at the turntable as they had to get 4501 off, serviced and then turned, so we went back to the tunnel for some more runbys, with 4501 leading





and here we go, busting out of the tunnel with some dark smoke

 

Keep 'em coming and thanks for sharing! These are fantastic!
~J

 

Nice work Gary! Keep 'em coming

Smells like Victory!

You ain't the only one...

Since I've only been doing this actively for the last 9 years, I am by no means an expert on the history of charter ops. Having gotten the disclaimer out of the way, I'll say that it has happened a couple of times that I'm aware of. Usually you only see that many engines used in a static shot or night photo session, but there have been instances when more than 3 ran. Quick list off the top of my head:

- In the 90's, John Craft ran a charter on the Cumbres & Toltec - I don't know about charter ops, but they did a static shot of all 5 operable locomotives in the yard and they were all hot at the time.
- Owosso Steam Fest 2009 featured 8 locomotives under steam.
- Lerro's C&TS Charter in 2012 featured 4 hot locomotives at the water tank for a night shoot.
- Cass Railfan Weekend 2013 had a static shot of 4 operable steam locomotives at the Depot and a night session with 4 in the Yard.
- Cass Railfan Weekend 2014 ran 4 locomotives on the hill. One on the log train and a triple header on the passenger train. I think there was also a hot spare in the yard.
- Cass Railfan Weekend 2015 featured at least 5 locomotives on 3 railroads. At least 2 ran on the passenger train at Cass plus one on the log train. The Heisler ran on the D&GVRR and the Climax ran out of Durbin.
- D&S Railfest featured 4 or more locomotives on the line several years when they had Eureka and 315 running as guests.

There have probably been more, but that's all I could think of.

 

so we backed 4501 to the bridge for a couple more runbys, you can improvise a lot when you are operating on only 3 miles of track, that you own, with a good y at one end and a turntable at the other





and the end of a very long day, i really did not do so well at the night shoot, i needed to take advantage of the longish break and go to my hotel and get warm, then needed some hot food combined with not being real familiar with my camera yet , i only took a handful of shots, so this is all i really felt like posting, i'll be better by the next charter, just a case of not having the time to do much practice due to that first responder class being very intense on real lifesaving stuff, really a lot of intense cpr and bleeding control stuff, shock treatment etc.



more to come from tuesday, a long day with many shots taken, including some interesting stuff with the reenacts and period cars, it might be a couple of days before i get anything else up here, i just downloaded the 800 plus that i need to cull/process and get online to smug mug to link to, but they will be here soon

 

Get to work ya lazy dog! We want our train shots and stories!!! You can sleep when you're done posting... It's Trainxelmania.

~J

 

so tuesday morning dawns nice and clear, still a little chilly, and the report to the depot time was 7:30, which for a lerro charter is positively sleeping in, enough time to have breakfast sitting down, like a civilized person, at my favorite southern breakfast spot, waffle house, covered, smothered and scattered please.
first runbys of the day, in rossville georgia, on the summerville line, this is where things got a little interesting, you go west from the main museum grounds to the east chattanooga station and soule shops, sight of yesterdays turntable shots, but then the line goes a little downhill and starts literally through a bunch of chattanooga neighborhoods, backyards, past the zoo, the national cemetery, chickamauga national battlefield, proceeding south to summerville georgia, on what was once the mainline of the central of georgia railroad, today it is a shortline operation, the chattooga and chickamauga operating 42 miles of line to lyerly georgia, the line itself leased from the state of georgia, the railroad is owned by georgia dot and operated by geneses & wyoming inc. all of which meant our day started off 20 minutes late with complications, steam operations which run a few times a year , mostly the fall, to summerville, require a CCKY pilot on board, if the crew is not qualified for that branch, we were scheduled to have a pilot, however apparently he called in sick, causing some issues, we will refer to this later



maybe some day i will lear how to clone out those wires, for now we live with them



the going away shot, i started to pay a little more attention to those on this trip, sometimes they are there, and sometimes not, i personally think the going away shot is a western open big sky country type shot not something more urban, but like so much of this hobby, that is personal preference



up on the hillsides at missionary ridge, and all that low brown vines looking stuff is kudzu, and do not be deceived, it is a real struggle to walk through





up the hillside a little more, we did 3 runbys here, allowing everybody to move around to different vantage points



moving around allowed a shot at the s curves



last of the ridge photos, and you cannot really seee it here, but the background across the valley, that's lookout mountain

 

see the unfortunate lack of the pilot meant that 630 had to lead, as that crew is qualified on this line, the 4501 crew is not, and the 630 crew is not qualified on 450, lerro productions tries to work it so that the leader is different each day, providing lots of variety for the clients.



the cars from the first runby have reappeared



so it's me, so you had to know a barn shot was coming, it just couldn't be worked into the train scene



and this is something you see in the south and midwest a lot, but never i the northeast, a crossing with just a cross buck, on an actual freight line, and it's too bad we couldn't better position the car, that is a nice old packard


then a car switch out



from the other side of that fine home

 

Re: that "fine home"... 90 more payments and it's all mine!!!
~J

 

Great stuff Gary, I do love when you (and Michael) post your experiences doing these charters. And getting a Robert Duvall reference in there as well? Awesome!

 

on to summerville, a pair of young ladies, waiting at the depot, perhaps off to visit a pair of young men at a military base, training to go overseas, perhaps to toccoa georgia to visit their young men in airborne training in 1942



although the addition of the 1950's truck now moves us past the war years





the side by side depot shot, and again the loss of the pilot caused changes, we did not turn these trains as originally planned because 4501 could not lead northbound, and what isn't in any of my photos, i guess i just never got excited to include it is the older 1st gen diesel and the 2 coaches we rode in, we ended up going back to chattanooga being towed home behind the diesel at the end of the day



and a restored atlanta police car, with a retired policeman in uniform hat and coat in attendance

 

bad girls , bad girls, what you gonna do





last runby spot of the day, mostly because of the time it took to get back to the museum grounds, speeds through metro chattanooga are very restricted, it seemed like about 10mph through much of it, both ways today








last runby, last shot of the charter for me, standing back by the grade crossing where we loaded up to be dragged back to chattanooga, arriving back at the museum depot just before 11:00 pm, about 2 hours late, something that continued, i was settled in in a chair at the chattanooga airport wednesday morning, the board showed the incoming flight about 15 minutes late from newark, not a dealbreaker, when all of a sudden all four of us charter attendees on the same flight got text messages announcing a 2 hour flight delay, it ended up being 90 minutes, due to flight traffic control issues, that was a new one for me, i talked to someone i know who travels a lot for business and he said it's common after a storm, as there are too many flights trying to get where they should have been for the available flight windows. i did get home rather easily once we took off, and i made a train to within 8 miles of home, which was good as the next one to speonk was another 2 hours later, so now i need to get on over to my pixel mania trip and finish those, but sitting here listening to sleet/snow hitting the windows, knowing a foot or so is coming this afternoon into tonight

 

Excellent job all around. Thanks again for sharing your adventure.

~Joanie