a bit of a late post · 2:53am June 19th
i meant to post this earlier than now (i worked the whole night and rested for much of the day).
this post that i thought of doing was sharing some videos. this is a way to showcase the 7th anniversary of when milwaukee road 261 operated in north dakota to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the red river valley & western railroad. (this is also a early celebration as next month is the 261's 80th birthday that date is not said when she rolled out of the alco shops but july was the month).
i found a few videos of this event. of course i think this was the last major hurrah for the 261. as of why is that in 2018 amtrak made some policy changes with not having steam excursions and private cars hauled at the end of of the regular trains. this was due to the major derailments amtrak had from the mid 2010's to the start of the late 2010's. so all the mainline steam engines weren't able to operate on the mainline cause of this so they still operate on tourist and shortline railroads. they think they would cause accidents. i just don't think banning special trains will keep amtrak from having accidents cause they've had a lot of accidents for the past few years. that's why i'm not a fan of their current operations.
anyway this was a rare event with the 261 operating in a state that's not had a steam engine operate in forever.
i like that the 261 was invited for this event. it's not likely there will be a repeat of this but it was a nice treat. thank you for checking this out and see you all later.
