Boothbay Railway Village Steamcourse, 2003 - Pt. 6 (End)

Part 6 - Have the hang of it and the time of my life driving around again. Then get to relax in the back while others get their turn. Final shots of the train heading past my 1975 BMW 2002 "Wahnsinn," a term that describes this weekend in every respect. The memories still live on.

Every boy's fantasy, to drive a real steam engine. I had a chance to live that fantasy in Boothbay, Maine the weekend of October 18-19, 2003. Spending time in that part of Maine each Summer, I immediately became enamoured with these little narrow-gauge (2 foot) Henschel "Monta" engines which were used on construction sites in Germany. Boothbay has three of these engines of which 2 are operational. The oldest dates from 1913, the newest from 1934.

The two day course was structured such that the first day was spent learning about the theory of steam locomotive operation with the second being a hands-on exercise in which each participant was able to drive the engines. The weather was perfect and a terrific time was had by all. The high of the day kept me awake on my 8 hour drive home and provided sweet dreams as I still wore the aroma of coal and steam...

My full report with more pictures can be found at http://www.philobiblon.com/eisenbahn/steamcourse.shtml . For more information on the course see the Boothbay Railway Village at http://www.railwayvillage.org .

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Autos & Vehicles

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• Steamcourse