Celebrating 65 years!. On August 20th of 2022, the Black Hills Central Railroad celebrated it's 65th anniversary as a tourist line, and did so in fine style by running a double-header, featuring both of their big Mallets. Although the Black Hills Central may be one of the least well-known steam tourist railroads in the country, it is, in fact one of the very oldest. As a tourist line, it is older than even the venerable Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania. Established in 1957, the Black Hills Central ran narrow gauge equipment on dual-gauged track for a number of years, before migrating to an all standard gauge operation. They've also operated quite a number of locomotives over their history, most recently, this pair of big, Baldwin, 2-6-6-2T Mallet Saddle-Tankers. Our special anniversary train paused at the Oblivion Wye, near Mile Marker 4.4, allowing photographers with special VIP tickets to disembark. Three run-bys were then conducted, including this one, which featured excellent stack talk and a great smoke-show as the train climbed the steep grade past the wye.
Another interesting fact that makes the Black Hills Central pretty unique among steam operations is that the owner and President of the railroad is a relatively young woman by the name of Meg Warder. Ms. Warder actually accompanied us on this special, anniversary excursion.
