Hope someone got a video of various old fashioned passenger cars with steam engine and regular engine, too. [Link to some Facebook video.]
RR near First & Liberty
» Want more items like this one? Visit the Stopped. Watched. page.
Archived by the Ann Arbor District Library
Video: [link]
The Monroe News has a short report on the same train: [link]
So was it actually operating as a steam locomotive?
Yes, this was the very train I mentioned in my earlier Stopped/Watched item. As the article in “The Monroe News” reported, it did indeed have a steam locomotive in operation, but a modern engine was leading it and the other cars. The sound of the steam was what first caught my attention, indicating that this was a different type of locomotive from the usual daily trains that pass along that track. I tried to peer into the passenger cars but did not see any passengers. The passenger cars themselves often differed in style and had various interesting names that linked them to geographic areas or railroad systems (see video link above).
This was the Nickle Plate Road #765 which is operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. It was heading north to Owosso for the Train Expo this past weekend. I heard that once the #765 was on the Great Lakes Central tracks north of Ann Arbor, the diesel engine that led the train was dropped and the #765 took the lead up to Owosso. The cars would have been empty on the trip north. The #765 led excursions out of Owosso with passengers on board those cars as part of the Train Expo. You can see photos of the engine with its “sister” engine, the Pere Marquette #1225 on the Twitter feed for the #765. [link]