This release on two DVDs looks
at the excursion career of St. Louis & San Francisco 4-8-2 #1522.
Our look back covers her
career from her restoration to service to the final day she had steam pressure
in her boiler. We see the highs and lows
over the years including appearances at three National Railway Historical
Society conventions, deadhead runs on freight trains, excursions and days where
mechanical problems wreaked havoc. Through it all the volunteers of the St.
Louis Steam Train Association worked to keep Frisco 1522 in top shape for the
mainline, until rising costs and declining opportunities to run resulted in her
retirement in 2002.
We ride the cab on multiple
trips including on Iron Hill with the 1990 NRHS trip on Frisco rails, on the Burlington
Route line to West Quincy, and eastbound on the Frisco with Don Morice’s former
Illinois Central whistle on the engine.
We also ride with the crew,
pace the train and see the action trackside as America's only operational 4-8-2
put on a show for fourteen years.
The show begins in the Frisco’s
Lindenwood Yard at St. Louis with several retired steam locomotives awaiting
their fates after being retired. Some
would be saved and still exist today; others would be scrapped. Meanwhile, the 1522 had been donated to the Museum
of Transportation at nearby Kirkwood.
By 1986 we see restoration
work underway as volunteers work to return the 1522 to the mainline. We see restoration work progress, the first
steamup, hear the whistle blow for the first time, and see test runs at the
museum. We watch as the 1522 leaves the
museum for the first time, assisting MoPac diesels on a local freight heading
downtown. We catch the locomotive’s
dedication at Union Station, and her trip north for break-in runs on the
Wisconsin Central.
What follows is fourteen
years of the 1522 in action on freight and passenger trains in Missouri,
Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Kansas and Oklahoma.
The program ends at the
Museum of Transportation on September 30th, 2002, as the 1522’s
boiler is vented and drained for the final time, the morning after her last
run.
This program was made with
the generous assistance of St. Louis Steam Train Association Chief Mechanical
Officer and engineer Don Wirth and 1522 fireman Don Morice, who both provided
video and film from their cameras and collections.
Running time 3 hours and 56
minutes on Two DVDs.
Copyright
2025
DVD-R only
A Frisco 1522 Retrospective
$22.00 plus shipping.
Shipped by USPS Ground Advantage
