Steam Saturday: The J at Night

Norfolk & Western Class J 4-8-4 No. 611 was a primary star on Norfolk Southern’s steam schedule in 1984.

It’s first set of excursions near us were roundtrip Erie, Pennsylvania, and Buffalo, New York, trips, the weekend of Aug. 11 and 12, 1984.

We learned that the locomotive was laying over near downtown Erie prior to the trips. After work on Friday, Aug. 10, I joined Marty Surdyk and his brothers Robert and John to capture some night photography in Erie prior to the weekend excursions that we chased.

Dan Pluta had recently hooked up as a volunteer with the steam crew and aided us with our photography. We were happy with our results that night along with images captured on the next day’s excursion. Above are a couple of my night shots.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Tags: Edward Ribinskas photograhs, N&W 611, N&W 611 excursions, Night photo shoot, night photography, steam locomotives