Santa Fe 3751 Steam Locomotive leaving Los Angeles for San Diego

[FlierFrank172]

I wonder if all the locomotive drivers who see one of these is jealous.

[mwhkelly]

@FlierFrank172 Judging by the grin on the face of the engineer of the diesel behind the steam locomotive, I'd bet they all are!

[drigin1234]

that loco is beutiful

[hoppercar]

its there for electrical power generation to run the air conditioning

[CaptainChaos]

So was the steam loc pulling the train on its own, or was the diesel loc helping?

[mwhkelly]

I'd like to think it was only in the consist for insurance. You can't have a vintage machine on a mainline without backup in case it breaks. A blocked mainline could be very expensive. That being said, I'm no expert but it does sound like it's on the first notch.

[AmbBob]

Reason #2 for the diesel is to provide electrical power for the lights and air conditioning of the passenger cars

Reason #3 is to provide dynamic braking power for the train.

[mwhkelly]

Thanks, I new there were other reasons :)

Although I forgot about the dynamic braking assist.

[atsf3751fan]

@CaptainChaos Also, the diesel was idling, from the sound of it, so it was just helping with the electricity.

[CaptainChaos]

Now THAT is what a steam locomotive is supposed to look like!!!

[thelastprimerules]

perfect angle

[TestValleyRailway]

Awesome, I didn't know they ran mainline steam tours in Southern California. I bet that was an awesome ride!

[FreihEitner]

@TestValleyRailway It was definitely an awesome ride. I was in the front end of car 2 as we pulled out of LAUS. I'm grateful to all who got video of the train from the outside, but you should have been onboard for the ride!

[TestValleyRailway]

@FreihEitner

Do you know if they plan to do anything similar to this again? The only US tour I've done is the Tecate ride out of Campo, but that was diesel pulled :(.

[FreihEitner]

@TestValleyRailway I believe they've done this run two years in a row. I check out SBRHS site every now and then to see if they have trip news; that's where I learned about this one. P.S.  I just got back from watching 3751 go through Upland, CA on its way to San Bernardino for today's rail festivities there.

[theUP844]

@FreihEitner I could not agree more. that sure was a great trip. I'm glad that I got to ride it. I hope they do this trip again next year. In my book theres hard a thing that can beat riding a steam train.

[theUP844]

Great Shot, evryone that filmed today's run gets a thumbs up from me cause I was on the train. I'll post Part 1 of my video's tomorrow.