Grapevine Vintage Railroad announces return to service for rehabilitated 117-year-old locomotive
October 9, 2013 / Updated June 26, 2023
Heritage
Grapevine Vintage Railroad’s vintage locomotive, “Puffy”, will make its official return to the rails on Oct. 18 for the first of a series of short excursion runs. – Cowcatcher Magazine
GRAPEVINE, TX – The Grapevine Vintage Railroad announced today that “Puffy” will ride again.
The tourist railroad’s 117-year-old steam engine No. 2248, affectionately known as “Puffy,” will return for a series of short excursions beginning Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. The locomotive, a former Southern Pacific 4-6-0, has undergone extensive repairs since being sidelined in December 2010.
Puffy will head short excursion trains each Friday evening until Thanksgiving, when the North Pole Express begins holiday runs. GVR’s GP7 diesel locomotive will assist.
GVR crews have been working in earnest for several months to return Puffy to the road. A piston, rings and cylinder cap were machined to fix damage during a run to Hodge Yard in Fort Worth almost three years ago. At the time, the failure was the second in two years that forced the locomotive out of service.
In September, Puffy could be seen making short test runs from the shop in Grapevine.
Puffy, built in 1896 by Cooke Locomotive Works in Paterson, NJ, was originally purchased by the SP and used in California for passenger and freight service. In 1976, the Texas State Railroad purchased Puffy to help launch the Texas State Railroad Excursion. Private collector William S. Davis later bought No. 2248 from TSR and eventually launched the Fort Worth & Western Railroad’s local Tarantula run. She made her first trek to Grapevine in 1993 and has resided there ever since.
Tickets for the Friday excursions can be purchased through the Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau by calling (817) 410-3185.
North American railroads have hauled coal in quantity ever since the anthracite roads were built on the East Coast. Decades later and despite many changes that have diminished production, coal remains a top (but declining) commodity. While it has weathered shifts in power generation and other factors leading to its decline, coal still accounts for 28 percent of total rail tonnage and 12 percent of revenue. Watch a coal trains roll by and you’ll notice that most cars are painted a stripe or block of color on one end. The color doesn’t matter, but the painted end has a rotary coupler, the non-painted end a solid drawbar. Learn how this combination of couplers enable railroads to move coal efficiently.
Manufacturers roll out the red carpet at January's Amherst Railway Society's Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield, MA. The show set an attendance record of 27,535 at what has become the big daddy of train shows. Several manufacturers came out in full dress to tout their latest products and announce new runs. At times it appeared to be a battle of the booths, something show chairman John Sacerdote anticipated leading up to the show. Lionel and Walthers did not disappoint.
After almost 20 years of top-line service, the Pennsylvania Railroad's St. Louisan and New Yorker were rechristened Spirit of St. Louis after the custom-built Ryan monoplane in which Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic flight. PRR’s advertising and publicity forces wasted no time capitalizing on transatlantic frenzy. The Spirit’s christening was celebrated June 15, 1927, less than a month after Lindbergh’s May 21 landing in Paris. Take a ride on the train in the Cowcatcher's ongoing series, "The Golden Age of Passenger Travel."
CN rolls out a medium horsepower hybrid locomotive that will be deployed this year across several of the railroads's yards and branch lines. Watching trains circle a layout adds a warm touch to modeling and relieves stress, say modelers. And more!
