Mainline Steam comes to St Peters, Missouri

In its celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the railroad had 20 new diesel locomotives painted in the color style of its predecessor railroads.

Here is a link to a family photo shot of all these heritage engines when all 20 of the units gathered for the anniversary celebration on July 4, 2012 at the North Caroline Transportation Museum roundhouse. 

Even though trackage of one of the predecessor railroads runs thru St. Peters, I did not think I would ever see one of these heritage engines run thru here.

However as part of the 30^th anniversary Norfolk Southern was doing employee appreciation excursions behind a steam locomotive. They used Nickel Plate 765 which is a  2-8-4 Berkshire Steam Locomotive. This locomotive is owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. The 765 was built in 1944 and retired from the Nickel Plate Railroad in 1963 and donated to the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.  It was in static display at their museum until it was restored to active steam service in 1979.  It went through another rebuild restoration in 2001.

In September the Norfolk Southern Railroad brought the employee appreciation steam excursions to former Wabash Railroad trackage in St. Louis.  On September 8 and 9 they ran two excursions each day that came out to St Peters on the Norfolk Railroad tracks that was once Wabash Railroad tracks.  There was not a place in St. Peters to turn the train or a siding long enough to unhook the engine from the cars and move it to the other end for the reverse trip.  Therefore they had two of the new Norfolk Southern Heritage diesel locomotives on the rear that was used to pull the train back to its starting point in St. Louis County about 15 miles east of St. Peters. They used the Wabash Heritage unit 1070 and the Illinois Terminal unit 1072. Illinois Terminal was a local terminal railroad that operated in the St. Louis area until 1981 when it became part of the Norfolk & Western Railroad which became  Norfolk Southern Railroad in 1982. So I got see two of the new Norfolk Southern Heritage diesel locomotives. Plus a steam locomotive.

These are the photos I took of the train.

Here is photos of the Wabash Heritage unit on the rear.

 

Here is video I took with my iPhone with the steam engine under power.

This video is with the heritage units pulling the train.