Images Of 3751 On The Road To Canyon Rails 2002Welcome to the image gallery! This gallery consists of images taken while 3751 has been on the road. This is part two of the image gallery's Canyon Rails 2002 trip to the Grand Canyon. This is an image intensive page and will take some time to load, please be patient.
Tuesday morning Fred Hill let me know at breakfast that we would be out of childrens t-shirts before the end of the day. T-shirts were my arena and I made the call to get the ball rolling to have more made and shipped to us in Williams before the end of the week. The train left Needles at 11:10am with Bill Stetler at the throttle and Phil Kauke firing east to Kingman. More masses of people were at the Colorado River Bridge to photograph the train. The crew observed that boaters on the river completely stopped their water activities to watch the old girl roll across the bridge with mouths wide open. Must have been an odd sight to see all the boaters staring up at them. The run up to Kingman was uneventful, and run at track speed.
Again, there were many people at Kingman for just a 15 minute stop. We were in at 1:20pm to change Amtrak crews, and the engine crew changed with Bob Kittel replacing Phil Kauke firing. Running through the canyons leading up to Valentine was very picturesque, and the sound of the exhaust echoing off of the canyon walls was terrific. It was basically more uneventful running to Valentine where the engine was serviced on the main at 2:45pm. There was considerable distance between the mains so that shooting the rods was safer – this service took 35 minutes and the train left at 3:20pm.
Leaving Valentine Bill Stetler wanted a clear block so he could really run the engine, but he only got a restricted clearance – proceed at 40 miles an hour and expect to stop at the next light. Bill waited for a long time to get that clear block, but it never came – dispatch sent him out restricted. There was more uneventful running at track speed (host railroads really like that, uneventful to them means nothing went wrong and there were no delays) right up to Williams. There was a photo opportunity with the 3751 on the BNSF main over the 4960 on the Grand Canyon Railway line below set up as the train hit town. At 6:45pm the train arrived at Williams Junction and then was backed into the Williams Depot, thus successfully completing one leg of this historic journey at 7:15pm.
3751 was serviced at the depot after the train was moved into the yard, a full lubrication service was done – no water was taken. The service crew shut her down and capped the stack around 11:00pm.
On Wednesday the 21st the engine was re-lit at 8:00am and then spent the whole day on the Williams Depot platform being displayed as the SBRHS merchandising forces were quietly exchanging greenbacks for T-shirts, caps, pins, videos and books. The 3751 was used in the night photo shoot, engine crew for that event was Mike Thornton and Wolf Fengler. When the night photo shoot was finished with the engine was watered at the western most extreme of the Williams Depot, on a bridge over a creek and right next to the grade crossing at 7th Street. This was very dirty water and was clearly full of silt, some water was taken but not a full tank. We knew there was a severe water shortage, but never thought it was that bad. We did have the water tested, and although it was murky - the hardness of the water was very low. The engine again overnighted on the Williams depot platform.
On Thursday the 22nd the engine was re-lit at 8:00am and was moved to the Grand Canyon Railways shop for the NRHS shop tour. After the shop tour Bill Stetler moved the 3751 to the Grand Canyon Railways pit track in the shop and did a thorough inspection of the engine. This is something that he normally does with any piece of equipment he operates, whether it’s the SP 4449, SP 2472, CP 2816, or ATSF 3751. Bill, I should mention is also the head of the Canadian Pacific Steam program.
Behind the scenes a problem was brewing, the company contracted to deliver oil to the SBRHS in Williams has failed to make the delivery. Most of the day is spent with Bob Kittel and Paul Prine on the phone trying to find oil and have it delivered before Fridays stealth train. The problem worked itself out, and the Grand Canyon Railway spotted us some fuel for the day - some oil mixed with diesel fuel, which it can burn, but diesel doesn’t have anywhere near the BTU’s that our regular fuel oil has. As a result our mileage was pretty bad on Friday. Late in the day the rest of the fuel deliveries for the trip were re-arranged with another firm from the Phoenix area. The engine again overnighted on the platform of the Williams depot.
On Friday the 23rd of August the 3751 was used with Grand Canyon's Harriman coaches for a photographers/videographers special – by invitation only arranged by Dave Goodheart of Dave Goodheart Videos. Engine crew call was at 2:00am for Bill Stetler, Scott Baker and Paul Prine, passengers arrived and were loaded at 4:00am. There were numerous runbys without diesels and vintage green Grand Canyon coaches all over the Grand Canyon line, and all participants were extremely happy with the engines performance and the images that were made on this picture perfect day.
At 2:00pm there was an engine crew change at Wilaha and Mike Thornton, Wolf Fengler, Bob Kittel and Dan Echeto took over for the balance of the day after they received 6,000 gallons of water from a tanker truck. Later in the afternoon Robert Franzen asked to run the engine for one of the runbys and of course was given the right hand seat for the rest of the day. I met the train at the Williams Depot at the end of the day at 7:45pm and ran into Robert when he climbed down, he had a smile from ear to ear as we talked briefly, I noticed that he kept looking back at the engine as the warm colors of sunset reflected off her jacket. It was a great day again for 3751. The engine was given a full service and watered – fuel oil was also taken. The engine was prepared for its second trip to the rim that would take place tomorrow morning for the NRHS, Warren Scholl, Paul Prine and Wolf Fengler performed some late night hosteling and was tied up by the hostling crew at 1:00am.
