Frisco Silver Dollar Line 504: Summertime in the Ozarks

On May 20, 2024 I returned to Silver Dollar City to find Czech 0-4-0 504 pulling trains on the Frisco Silver Dollar Line. Set atop a hill in the Missouri Ozarks, Dollywood's sister park has been entertaining guests with top-of-the-line thrill rides, historic craftsmen, great food and live entertainment, and tours of the Marvel Cave for over 60 years. Running through the middle of it all is the Frisco Silver Dollar Line, a 24" gauge railroad carrying guests on a 1.5 mile journey through the Ozarks and towards a humorous meeting with some wanna-be train robbers. As an additional surprise, one of the engineers this day was Dominique Hogue. He was one of the first online friends I made when I first started YouTube 15 years ago, and although we hadn’t talked in years it was great to finally meet in person! 504 was built by Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk in Prague in 1941. In the 1970s it found its way to Jim Machacek's private Northfield & Cannon Valley Railroad in Minnesota, where it ran until a tragically fatal accident in 2007. After Mr. Machacek passed away, his rolling stock was auctioned off and purchased by Silver Dollar City in 2016, who restored his two steam engines as the new 14 and 504. 504 is the only member of the FSDL fleet with a tender, and runs alongside fellow CKD engine 76 and German Orenstein & Koppel engines 13, 14, and 43.