I won't for sure.

 I'll be back soon enough.

 Maybe next time. :-)

 They had two steam locomotives, one operational, but stored in a garage
for winter.

 They thought the big Yank was pretty weird, skipping 2/3rds of the museum
and wanting into the garage. :-)

 The live steam loco was a little 0-2-0 Vulcan Docksider, 3 ft gauge, that
would fit nicely in my garage and make a perfect "garden railroad".

 This is kinda like it, but, the Vulcan was actually smaller than any of
these models: http://narrowmind.railfan.net/BLW/BLW-ng-040T-chart.jpg

 It was all I could do to get in and out of the building in the wind, at my
size.

 I can top that twice. :-)

 I've been walking around all week in tank tops (I'm in my third decent
storm, I love it), getting a few comments. :-)

 I have a Carhartt in here somewhere, but haven't unpacked it yet.

 Last year I only wore it twice.

 I'm intimately familiar with the WP&Y, although I've never been and it
would be a dream vacation.

 I envy your visits.

 3ft gauge rail, especially a working steam railroad, is one of several
things I now rate above sex.

 At home in East Tennessee, the Dollywood tourist railroad had three
(technically 4) of the WP&Y's finest Steam Locomotives (#70, 71, 192), two
restored (for decades) and a third under way.

 http://masl.to/?R2B15226E

 http://masl.to/?H2D11226E

 http://masl.to/?X6E12326E

 http://masl.to/?D1715226E

 The "technically 4th" (#72) was burned in the Skagway roundhouse fire, and
sold for parts.

 I remember it whole, but mostly as running gear drivers and frame.

 One of the WP&Y's other surviving locomotives (#190) is 80 miles away at
Blowing Rock, NC.

 http://masl.to/?D3F11526E

 What's really funny is that Tweetsie RR is some sort of inbred kissing
cousin kin/descendant to the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina
Railroad, which once terminated about a mile away from the amusement park
(i.e., the park opened shortly after the railroad closed).

 It was a functioning dual gauge railroad from 1890-something to 1950 (and
trackage still arguably running today), and one of Tweetsie's two
locomotives is an ET&WNC original (#12, owned for a short time by Gene
Autry), and they preen -it- and treat the WP&Y 190 like a French Canadian.

 Dollywood has a complete maintenance facility for their locos, and the
Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock does full restorations for customers from
around the world.

 These engines are in pristine condition, and, probably worth well over a
million a pop.

 The WP&Y has only -one-, at this time (#73).

 It's recently restored, and they wheel it out with a parade a couple times
a year.

 A -very- interesting story, when WP first switched to diesel-electric,
they couldn't scrap the steam engines fast enough, so they started using
them for rip-rap in the Skagway river to stop erosion.

 Vintage steam locomotives are now worth so much that the WP is digging
them out of the river bank after 50 years to be sold, no joke.

 Whenever the White Pass fan group rails on (pardon the pun) about their
twice or thrice annual steam runs, I remind them that I can hear WP&Y steam
daily, 10 months a year, from my porch, since 1961.

 They (somewhat legitimately) act as if Dollywood is holding the
locomotives -hostage-, and I remind them that they've now seen more than
three times the service in Tennessee that they did up North. :-)

 But a vintage 120,000 lb steam locomotive slaved to a 5 mile track loop
hauling tourons is as cruel and heartless as a Great White in an aquarium.

 And -that's- everybody's railfan lesson for the day.