September 13, 2015 – The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s Southern Railway 4501 heads from the museum onto the Norfolk Southern Mainline at Chattanooga, Tennessee with a loaded passenger train bound for a round trip to Cleveland, Tennessee during the Museum’s 2015 Railfest.
4501 was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1911 for the Southern Railway, the 4501 was the first of its class on that railroad. The wheel arrangement is a 2-8-2, known as a Mikado since the first of this type were sold to Japan. 4501 served the Southern until the 1940s when the railroad began buying diesel locomotives and phasing out steam operations. It then then saw service on a small coal-hauling railroad in Kentucky. Since the mid-1960s, 4501 has pulled countless passenger excursion trains across the Southern (later Norfolk Southern) Railway. The 4501 ended its service in 1999 due to rising maintenance costs. However, with the start of Norfolk Southern’s “21st Century Steam” program, the 4501 returned to service this year.
Tech Info all photos: 1/1250sec, f/10, ISO 900, Lens: Sigma 24-70 @ 24mm with a Nikon D800 shot and processed in RAW. ?#?jimstrainphotos?