A Nickel Plated Day

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad is hosting the Steam in the Valley again.  They were doing it last weekend and this weekend.  I decided to head down there last weekend because I have a game coming up on Saturday.  Unfortunately, I acted to late to get tickets, so I had to get tickets for the morning run of the train which meant that I had to get up pretty early.

 This is an FPA-4 unit that was built by Alco and General Electric.  It was first produced in January of 1946 and production ended in 1959.  The FPA was designed to handled both freight and passenger trains.  This particular unit was built by the Montreal Locomotive Works in 1959 and served with the Canadian National Railroad.  I like the looks of these old diesel engines, they almost look like a face.

 The Nickel Plate 765 has been on this blog several times now.  It is a 2-8-4 Berkshire type steam locomotive built in 1944 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio for the Nickel Plate Railroad.  It was first used in Bellevue, Ohio for the fast freight trains and then it was used in a classification yard.  It was last used in 1958 and was the last Nickel Plate steam engine.  It was acquired by the Fort Wayne Historical Railroad society in 1974 and remains in their possession.

 A friendly wave from the engineer and coaler.  The name underneath is one of the people who supported the railroad and passed away.

 I ended getting deluxe tickets which meant that I was seated in the dining car.  I think this was a bit nicer than some of the other cars.  Our car attendant was pretty cool.

 As we were waiting for the trip to start, I saw this bird on a post outside our window. 

 The train moves through the Cuyahoga Valley which is a now a national park.  It consists of land that used to be part of the Ohio and Erie Canal.  It was used to transport goods from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.

 It is a pretty nice little park

 If you look closely in the upper right, you can see an eagle's nest.  Just above that, you can see an eagle.

 I think this is part of the Cuyahoga River.

 Another part of the river.

 This was an old truck that passed us.

 One of the things that I like about this particular excursion is that they set up an area where they can do a run by of the train.  It makes for some pretty cool pictures because they line up the people on one side and you can get clean shots of the train.

 They actually do two passes of the train.  So if you screw up pictures on the first run, you have another chance.  First it was blowing off steam before the run.

 And the first run.  It gets up a pretty good head of steam and the engineer usually blows the whistle.  There is nothing quite like the sound of a steam engine's whistle.

 Like I said, it was a pretty nice run.

 This is an Alco RS-18 Engine that was originally owned by the Canadian Pacific railroad.  It was not quite the star of the show, but that's not going to stop me from getting pictures of it.

 Another shot of that particular engine.

 I guess my only complaint about the pass was that for one of the parts where I wanted a picture, I was shooting right into the sun.

 The train starting another run.

 Another bit of blowing off steam.

 I think I like this shot a little better.

 A sort of stern shot of the train.

 This is the car that we were riding in.  Like I said, it was a dining car.

And the people start to file back on the train to finish the trip.

I think of the excursions that I've ridden, I like this one the best.  It's long enough to enjoy the ride on the train and it goes through some pretty nice terrain.  They give a nice opportunity for pictures of the train itself.  And most importantly, the staff that operate are awesome.