Smoke Along the Fox

Today I had an opportunity to stop out at the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, where Dave Kloke and a crew of workers were testing and adjusting the world's newest steam engine, Northern Central 17 "York."

It's a beautiful engine even in slightly disassembled state, missing its pilot, headlight and some covers.  The locomotive was built by Kloke for Steam Into History Inc., which plans to operate it in southeastern Pennsylvania near Gettysburg.  The crew working on it were making adjustments to the engineer's side slide valves while I arrived and then took the locomotive out on the FRTM line for a test trip.  A small platform with two crew members on it was bolted to the side of the cylinder to aid in inspecting the motion. At top, the engine departs Castlemuir on a trip; middle, the locomotive sitting prior to its trip with the platform in the foreground; bottom, the locomotive returning to the FRTM property with the inspectors riding on the platform.