ABILENE, Kan. — Fans who were looking forward to enjoying an extra season of steam-powered trips on the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad will have to wait a little longer for those trips to begin.
Trains powered by Santa Fe No. 3415, the railroad’s 104-year-old 4-6-2 locomotive, were to have begun operation Memorial Day weekend, but the railroad discovered a problem during a maintenance run on May 25 that sidelined the Pacific for the holiday weekend and is slated to do so again this coming weekend. The locomotive is currently scheduled to resume operation on Saturday, July 10.
“The engine passed its safety inspection,” A&SV President and General Manager Ross Boelling said in a statement. “But after its initial steam test, our crews and Heritage Rail Management — our consultant from Durango, Colo. — recommended that additional time was needed to make unforeseen repairs to ensure the safety of our guests, passengers, and historic equipment.”
In the meantime, all scheduled excursion and dinner trains will be powered by the railroad’s diesel engine.
Passengers who paid an extra $20 for the steam-powered trip can accept a $20 refund and ride behind the diesel; defer their trip to another weekend when the steam engine is operating; take a full $43 refund; or take the diesel trip and donate the $20 different to the 3415 fund, which pays for repair and maintenance of the 1919 Baldwin.
Those who have purchased tickets can contact the railroad at 785-263-0118 or by email at gm.asvrail@asvrr.org.
The Abilene & Smoky Valley had originally believed No. 3415 would be sidelined this year to begin its federally mandated 1,472-day inspection, but discovered during the process of filing paperwork that the locomotive still had a year of operation available [see “Kansas tourist railroad finds it has another year to operate steam locomotive,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 23, 2023].
I’m pleased to report that the ATSF3415 repairs were completed this week and she operated as power for our 6/3 2pm Excursion and 6pm Dinner trains. Based on the successful results of the test run, we DO plan to begin our Summer Steam Schedule on June 10th as previously reported.