It was our first time at TM. Wow, what a layout! The people there were incredible, we met and talked to so many and got to know them. What an honour it was to have run CP5400 on rail for the first time and do it at TM.

There was quite a lot of excitement created when people found out CP5400 had never been run on rails before. It had quite an audience for the steam up early Friday morning and then the run. It performed flawlessly and sounded incredible. After about 3 hours of running it was discovered the brake control valve had failed leaving the engine brakes partially applied. It wasn’t until we uncoupled the train that the problem was detected.

I am also honoured to have had Mike Venezia from New Jersey, with all his skills and experience, as engineer for much of that first run. He sure put 5400 through the paces and gave it a huge passing grade as in “that sure is a beautiful running locomotive”.

I want to thank Mike and also the boys from the Largo club for making that first run “special” for me. I also want to thank Jerry Smolyk from the Maricopa club and Bob Patterson from Steamtown for providing the filming train and back up train. Rick Moses from Edmonton made it possible for me to leave my vendor booth by tending it for me thanks a lot Rick and Jean. I also want to thank everyone that stopped at our booth to visit, admire the display and talk to us. All you folks kept us busy 8am to 7pm every day for the week. We made a whole lot of new friends. It is all you people that made this event a success.

5400's first time on rail. This is 7am Friday morning of the Triennial.

Loading water and warming it up at the Central Station steaming bays.

They came out early to catch a glimpse.

Heading for the turn table to get on the main line.

Off to hook up Mike’s riding cars.

Have steam will travel and they will follow.

Got a train...

...and passengers.

Taking on more water before the climb up Serpentine’s grades.

Coupled up to Jerry Smolyk’s twin CN diesels and his train with passengers just to add more load for the climb to see what the Mike can actually pull.

That was big fun and the 3 hour first run was flawless.

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