Over the 13 years we have operated the 765, we have worked with many professional railroaders on various railroads. In the early days of our operations, some of these "old heads" had previous steam experience and were familiar with the performance of a steam locomotive. But the vast majority of the men we work with today have had no previous steam experience. This unfamiliarity occasionally leads to some interesting incidents when on the road.

My first experience with the full power of the locomotive occurred in 1984, on the Chicago & North Western. We were operating an excursion from Chicago to Janesville, Wisconsin, and were pulling only about 15 or 16 cars as I recall, including two of the C&NW "Presidential" F-units. The Fs were not pulling the train but were needed to provide head end power to the North Western's bilevel coaches. Gary Bensman was the engineer, and I was firing. After an hour or so of fast, easy running we arrived at the photo runby location, which was a long tangent that led into a very broad right hand curve at the photo line. As we began to back up for the photo run, the C&NW road foreman asked Gary to back up far enough so that we could go by the photo line at 35 m.p.h. The people were plainly visible as we backed up, and Gary stopped at a point where he figured we could comply with the road foreman's request, approximately 2500 to 3000 feet from the photo line.

The C&NW pilot engineer was a young man who had told us when he arrived that morning that this was his first trip on a steam locomotive. When Gary stopped the train, this young engineer looked ahead and said, "This isn't far enough, you'll have to back up some more. There's no way you'll be going 35 when we go by the people." Gary turned to him, pointed to the throttle quadrant at about the halfway point and said, "We'll be just fine. You haven't seen the throttle open past this point all morning. How do ypu know what this locomotive can do?"

As Gary turned back to face forward, our eyes met for a brief moment, and I knew what was coming. When we got the okay to proceed, Gary opened the sanders and eased the Berk into motion.

As soon as he was sure that all the slack was stretched and the whole train moving, he unlatched the throttle and in one smooth motion swept it wide open! The exhaust, which had been little "chuffs" up to that point, instantly became an ear-splitting cannonade, blasting what looked like telephone poles out the stack. The eight huge drivers bit hard into well sanded rail, and 765 surged ahead. I already had the stoker running fast, feeding a steady supply of fuel to the now white-hot firebox. As the engine accelerated, Gary began to hook up the reverse. The exhaust grew sharper and faster as our speed began to climb. The extra fuel flowing from the stoker kept the steam pressure right at 245, and the feedwater pump was keeping up with this sudden demand for power.

By the time we went by the photo line, the speed was nailed on 35. The C&NW engineer was practically beside himself with excitement. He was absolutely astounded at the acceleration of the engine, yelling at Gary, "I don't believe it! Man this thing is strong!"

Even I was impressed.

To read more of this article, click on http://www.railfan.com and order the back issue, or click here for a text-only version. The additional reading includes Rich Melvin's "The Hill", Slippery and Scary, Steam Versus Diesel, and 765 Versus A Dash-7.