Lokomotive 844

We were quite enraptured with Union Pacific's classic steam locomotive 844 when it came through Kansas in April. We weren't the only ones. See that line of traffic to the right in the picture below? Those are "railfans", hobbyists who devote themselves to the pursuit of railroads, and they are driving alongside the train, jockeying with each other to parallel the locomotive in order to take pictures, video or simply experience the locomotive in...well, locomotion.



For a few minutes, something neat was happening...well, neat if you're a railfan: there were two Alco locomotives in Abilene; they were just a year apart in production but products of different technologies. Aside from 844 as it shot through, a 1945 Alco diesel S-1 switcher lives here on the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad Association, a tourist line that offers dinner trains. I don't have a current picture of it, but here it is in the early 1990s when it belonged to its former owner, the Hutchinson and Northern Railway in Hutchinson, KS.