There was a lot of luck that went into making this image of Steam locomotive Frisco 1630 at the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM) during their 70th anniversary weekend in Union, Illinois.
In between the spitting rain on Saturday night, September 16th, 2023, I along with many other photographers were working on photographing the 1630 as it sat at the depot at IRM waiting for its next run. I was working with my D800 on a tripod shooting available light shots at 30 seconds each at f/4 with my Nikon 10-24mm lens, when several things happened.
I started the 30 second exposure and about 20 seconds into the exposure the train started to depart the station, resulting in the streaks you see of the headlight and marker lights on 1630. At the same time, I had a trolly come to a stop, which you see in the circle of smoke and the headlight star in the distance is from the Nebraska Zephyr waiting to enter the station after the Frisco departs. The headlight from the Zephyr illuminated the steam surrounding the scene, providing an effect that would be hard replicate, let along plan! Sometimes, I just get lucky!
According to IRM website: St. Louis – San Francisco Railroad (“Frisco”) 1630 is the museum’s most famous steam engine. A “Russian Decapod,” it was built in 1918 for export to Russia but was embargoed when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. Instead, the newly completed engine was sold to the Frisco, which used it in both freight and passenger service into the 1950s. The Frisco later sold it to Eagle-Picher Mining, where it saw use hauling freight and aggregate trains until the mid-1960s. It arrived at the IRM in 1967.
Tech Info: Nikon D800, RAW, Nikon 10-24 @15mm, f/5.6, 30 Seconds, ISO 100.
![September 1, 2018 - St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad steam locomotive 1630 sits in the station at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, waiting for it's 8pm run, as the last light of day begins to fade from the sky.
According to Wikipedia, the locomotive was built in 1918 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for use in Russia as a class Ye locomotive. However, it, along with approximately 200 other locomotives, remained in the United States, due to the inability of the Bolshevik government to pay for them, following the Russian Revolution.
1630 was converted from 5 ft (1,524 mm) Russian track gauge to 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge. After being re-gauged, #1630 was sold to the USRA and was numbered 1147. Shortly after, 1147 was briefly leased for use on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
In 1920, the locomotive was sold to the St. Louis – San Francisco Railway, where it was used as a mixed traffic engine. In 1951, the locomotive was sold to Eagle-Picher, who used it to haul lead ore from a mine to their smelter.
In 1967, the locomotive was donated to the Illinois Railway Museum, in Union, Illinois, where they began restoring it in 1972, it returned to operating condition in 1974 and made its first revenue run. Sometime after arriving at the museum, 1630 was restored from her Eagle Picher appearance back to her Frisco appearance. 1630 was taken out of service in 2004, and after more than six years undergoing repairs and a federally mandated rebuild, it was returned to operational condition on October 30, 2013.
On Memorial Day weekend 2014, the locomotive returned to excursion service. In 2016, the locomotive received a cylinder overhaul, which according to Steam department curator, Nigel Bennett, made the locomotive, "probably more powerful than she has been since her [sic] first arrival at IRM in the 1970’s." The locomotive, during Memorial Day weekend 2016, pulled 137 empty coal cars in storage at the museum as what was considered to be one of th](https://www.jimpearsonphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WEB-ART-Photo-09.01.18-Frisco-1630-Steam-at-station-IRM-Union-IL-1170x781.jpg)
