The Keddie Wye in Happier, Greener and Wetter times. As I posted the other day, the Dixie fire has scortched much of the North fork Feather River Canyon. UP battled hard and saved Keddie along with most of the rest of the bridges. BNSF lost a trestle on the line up to Bieber. Most of the ties in this section of the canyon are utterly destroyed. And the thing nobody is yet talking about is how winter will be, even if it's dry, given that the Canyon was already prone to slides before the trees all burned down.
Waiting room at the beauty salon: CN 30 (GE 70 tonner), Ontario Northland 1400 (MLW RS10), and a wooden passenger car waiting for their turn at some TLC. CN 30 was bought back in April 1950, along with many sisters, to dieselize CN's PEI operation. Up until a few years ago, 30 was the museum's switching engine. That's nearly 70 years in operation in one way or another - one tough little beastie! My photo, Exporail, June 23rd 2019.
Back on the Huckleberry this week, I caught ex-Alaska RR 152 crossing this short trestle over an arm of Mott Lake. Even though it's usually in shadow, this is stil one of my favorite photo spots on the railroad.
That's gotta' be a rare loco! Only other ARR loco I know of is the one up in Alaska being restored! 152 still running today?
The short answer is Yes. Barring mechanical failures, the Huckleberry always has at least one of their two steam locomotives in operation during the season. This year, they're running the 152 while their other steam locomotive, also a rare animal, Rio Grande K27 #464, is in the shop. More about the Huckleberry along with some interesting history on #152 can be found here: CROSSROADS VILLAGE & HUCKLEBERRY RAILROAD – Genesee County Parks
OK, so I felt compelled to look into the other Alaska RR locomotive being restored and discovered it's a WWII era army consolidation, one of around 2000 built, one of 12 owned by the Alaska RR and one of two of the 12 still in existence. Interesting video here: Engine 557 - Restoring Alaskan history - YouTube
That Huckleberry operation sure is sweet. A little slice of history, no time machine required! And Alaska 557 is going to look good once she's running.