Volume 4 was recorded on May 2, 1982, as Southern Railway 2-8-4 #2716 headed up a round trip excursion from Memphis, Tennessee, to Sheffield, Alabama, and return.
#2716 was the meteor of the Southern Railway steam excursion program; she briefly shone brightly and then she was gone. Her career lasted less than a year in 1981 and 1982, before firebox cracks and Norfolk & Western #611 returned her to retirement.
On this trip, the big former Chesapeake & Ohio Kanawha’s time was nearly up, but you wouldn’t know it by her sharp exhaust and deep steamboat whistle as she made short work of her excursion train. Starting her train with nary a slip and sprinting along at track speed, #2716 gave an all too brief glimpse at what a Southern Railway Super Power locomotive could have been.
2716 is back in Chesapeake & Ohio colors at the Kentucky Railway Museum, having not turned a wheel under her own power in years, but the memories of her excursion days live on.
