After leaving homebase in Roanoke, Va., Monday morning, the locomotive tied down for the night in the division point of Shenandoah, Va., Monday night after an attempt to reach Enola Yard, just outside Harrisburg, Pa., on its way to the Strasburg Rail Road. A long freight train, 16T, with troublesome distributed power units and a broken coupler knuckle ahead of No. 611’s train changed that plan. The expectation today is that No. 611, running in tow behind a diesel due to the lack of positive train control and cab signals, will reach Enola, tie up, and complete its trip to America’s oldest short line on Wednesday.
No. 611 is arriving at Strasburg early for its annual inspection and to prepare for public events in late September and October. It will return to its home at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke in November.
Gerald – PTC unit has to have air brakes cut in as leader in order to get a penalty brake application, I believe. So, not quite so simple and a really bad idea.
She was in Harrisburg this morning.
So a train with DPU still got a knuckle?
It departed Shenandoah about 10AM.
In theory the diesel could be behind 611 just for the PTC requirement and just be in idle…that’s in theory how the systems work, but we all know the railroads don’t want to admit that because then the FRA could grant permanent waivers to any mainline steam engine.