Jeff writes: August 3, I finally got to ( a sixty year wait) ride on a steam locomotive, something I wanted to do since first seeing one in 1954 when we moved to Long Island. We are in Chehalis, Washington, about 75 miles south of Seattle.

We went to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum. They have a 1916 Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive. The engine uses recycled crank case oil as fuel. It takes about 1000 gallons for the 1-1/4 hours ride. It also carries 4000 gallons of water to create steam using about 1000 gallons for the ride. This engine was used to haul timber in the area. I actually got to ride in the cab with the engineers and learned about the propulsion system and brakes. As we were about to get going, they ran into a problem that took 2 hours to repair. We finally got going.  Boy, what a bumpy ride but exciting.

I got some really good pictures of the engine at rest and along the track (see below) . I also got a short video as we started out.  Here’s the link to the video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8pEikxFeXc