During Steamtown’s Grand Opening celebration in July 1995 I photographed Canadian Pacific 4-6-4 No. 2816, which had been part of the Steamtown collection since the 1960s.
Years earlier I had seen CP Royal Hudson’s 2839 and 2860. I always regretted never having a chance to see the famous New York Central Hudsons.
If I did see any I would have been 1 or 2 years old, and obviously would not remember.
However, in September 1998, the Canadian Pacific purchased the 2816 from Steamtown in order to restore it to operation by a team headed by Doyle McCormack.
In May 2004 the restored 2816 pulled the railroad’s Trans Canadian Steam Express across Canada from Vancouver to Montreal.
On its return west on June 13, 2004, the train crossed into the United States at Buffalo, New York, for a routing on CSX to Chicago.
This meant that from Buffalo to Greenwich this was the former New York Central home to its famous Hudsons.
In the top photo above and the first one below, No. 2816 is on stactic dislay at Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1995.
The third photo was made as the train cruised westbound at Westfield, New York
The next three images were made during a service stop at Conneaut.
Word was the service stop was initially scheduled for Ashtabula, but Doyle McCormack, a Conneaut native, was running the locomotive and must have made some suggestion to change the service stop to Conneaut which happened to be his boyhood hometown.
Next up the train is at Schaaf Road in Cleveland on the former Big Four following by an image made in Grafton.
Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas
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