2102 - Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad - Mighty Steam (with not a diesel insight)!

PLEASE NOTE: There's an error in the Introduction: I refer to "Green Mountain" instead of "Blue Mountain". Please accept my apologies, I blame it on 'old age'!

Saturday, 14 October 2023 dawned cloudy and wet in Reading, Pennsylvania. Not a very auspicious start to, what turned out to be, a fabulous day! The 23rd day of my five week visit to the U.S.A. proved to be one of the best of my railfan life. The extended scenes in this video should be viewed with the volume up loud, apart from the first three minutes where the sound quality is poor, due to an issue with the microphone. (These scenes were retained as they capture the impressive size of the locomotive.)  The rest is quite stunning. The dreary day at the start, actually, gets worse! While the steam action just gets better! Reversing the train on the wye outside Jim Thorpe takes almost 20 minutes, in pouring rain drenching the hardy railfans and, in the final scenes, the train arrives at Port Clinton and pauses for three minutes to allow some passengers to detrain. I haven't cropped this scene as the tension builds for a mighty final scene. This video won't win any awards for cinematography, however, I hope that it conveys the sense of excitement and wonder of a truly memorable day... It's debatable whether this was the best day of the tour, however it rates high on the list. Future posts will cover the rest of, what proved to be, a fabulous, steamy, affair!