Santa Fe 2926 Open House

This weekend, we attended the open house for the Santa Fe 2926 steam locomotive in Albuquerque. They had a nice event, with free food, free tours of the locomotive, vendors, model railroad clubs and the whole bit.

The only catch was that I arrived about five minutes before the thunderstorm. They started packing things up when the rains and the wind hit, so I didn’t get to see all of it. Eventually, the rain let up, and I had a chance to walk around and take a few photos.

The locomotive did move under its own power recently, for the first time since the 1950s. One of the unique things about this locomotive is it was one of the last steam engines. It was built in 1944 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, it runs on oil, rather than coal.

Here is a video of the first time it had moved in 60 years, just a few months ago!

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Santa Fe 2926 Open House

Next weekend, there is an open house at the Santa Fe 2926 in Albuquerque. I will probably attend it and take some pictures. It should be particularly fun: free food, free entertainment, and of course, seeing all of the hard work the folks at http://www.2926.us/ and their unique steam locomotive.

They will also be operating a special event amateur radio station, NM5SX, and I will try to talk to them on the radio. They have a dipole antenna strung up by the locomotive, so I hope they get a signal out and make lots of contacts. For more information on that aspect of the open house, see: https://caravanradio.org/

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Santa Fe 2926 is Rolling!

I was out of town for several weeks. When I returned and checked the local newspaper, I was really excited to see that the Santa Fe 2926 locomotive is up and running! It has been sitting in Albuquerque for a number of years, and several of my friends have been part of the restoration project. JoAnna and I have toyed with being part of it, but with our schedules, they were meeting times we couldn’t attend, unfortunately.

The 2926 is the only running locomotive of its type, with only 30 of them ever built. It is fueled by waste oil instead of coal, and was built in the 1930s as diesel engines started to replace coal-fired engines, but diesel engines were in short supply as World War II was on the horizon.

I am really glad to see that it is up and running, and perhaps we will schedule a ride on it soon!

The El Defensor-Chieftain in Socorro has an article about it here: https://dchieftain.com/historic-train-steams-ahead-after-21-year-restoration-project/, mostly due to the fact that one of the key figures, Jon Spargo, is from Socorro. He was our introduction to the train, and has been instrumental in getting it up and running.

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