Regarding the Georgetown Loop Railroad – as you know I spent a number of Saturdays volunteering for the railroad before I got busy with other “stuff”. Anyway, there is no wye at either end of the loop! The engines always face uphill – the main reason is that you always want to ensure that you have water on the crown sheet, so it’s best to keep the firebox on the downhill side. From a practical perspective, it makes sense to keep the engine on the up-hill end of the train to keep the couplers under tension on the way up – it turns out that the friction of the wheel flanges on the cars on the down-hill trip are almost enough to keep the train’s speed in-check.

Finally, everyone knows that the little engine goes puff, puff, puff … chug, chug, chug up hill – it would just be wrong if the engine was facing the wrong way.