Thomas Day 2

Frank writes...

It's not exactly breaking news, but Sunday was the second day of Thomas for 2023. It was another successful day with big crowds - bigger than last year, it seemed - and things seemed to run quite smoothly. The most unusual thing about the day was likely the haziness, which I think was due to more wildfire smoke drifting down from up north.

I was running the 144, which is always fun, with Randy Allegrezza as my conductor. It was pretty nonstop all day; for the first hour or two we had the normal four cars in rotation, but the Matchbox got put away so that its crew could give the other three crews lunch breaks since we were understaffed on the "relief crew" side. I snapped a couple of photos during my lunch break, including this shot of Jeff running the 144.

It's always good to see crowds like this at the museum!

And to complement the "little blue engine" on one end of the train was the "big blue engine," Rock Island 4506, which of course is quite a showpiece since its paint job a few years ago.