What can I say... I spent two whole days last week in hog heaven and am
just now getting the time to make a note about it.
Some readers may remember my mentioning that I could not attend a recent
steamup due to being at Rusk the day prior to the event. Well, I ended up
spending two hot sweaty days climbing all over three running steam
locomotives. On the second day I went out with one of the brakemen and
learned quite a lot about switching and train care, not to mention the
hand signals used to comunicate with the engineer. =)
The first day I arived at about 7:40, 20 minutes earlier than expected to
find that the man I was to meet for job duties was not there yet.
However, one of the crew in the break room informed me that todays loco
was being brought up to steam and I could feel free to walk back and check
it out if I so wished. Well what would you have done?! There, sitting
just beyond the shop door was #300, a 1917 Baldwin Consolidation with a
faint stream of smoke coming from her stack and the roar of an oil fire
coming from her belly. It wasn't long before I found myself up in the cab
pooring over the varion handles and levers seeing which ones I could
remember the functions of and asking questions about the ones I couldn't.
Having never been in an oil burner this was interesting and I still find
myself amazed by the simple opperation of the system. All the locos on
the TX state Railroad burn diesel for fuel so there isn't any need for the
tank heaters during summer and the whole thing runs on a gravity feed with
steam atomization.
I soon found out, once Blair (the boss) arrived, that I would likely be
assisting with the diagnosis of a leaning coach car. Once this was
determined everyone set out to do something completely different and I
signed a waiver of liability before going to watch the rest of the
goings-on. Turns out they were planning to set one of the safeties (it
had just been rebuilt) on #500, a big (137 tons) Baldwin Pacific. When I
re-emerged from the shops they had their RS2 coupled up to the loco and
were draging it toward the servicing facility. The loco was completely
cold so I was able to witness the bringing online of a loco from nothing.
I helped with filling the tender's water tank, filling and connection of
the diesel air compressor (for atomizer and forced draft) and finally
climbed up in the cab to watch the lighting. A pre-soaked rag was brought
up and the firebox hatch was opened. Once the rag was burning it was
lofted into the box about a foot away from the burner nozzle. The hatch
was closed except for a ~4" viewport, the atomizer was opened slightly and
the fuel slowly turned up. Before long there was life in the box and
smoke out the stack. About this point I started asking questions again
and learned that there is a valve on the whistle turret that gets opened
during this phase of the warming up process. This valve opens into a
short run of 1.5" pipe that points straight up. When there is steam
coming from the pipe the valve is closed and they know that there be steam
in that boiler. From that point on it was sit and wait, adjust the blower
and atomizer, and make sure the firebox doesn't start 'drumming' (at one
point I saw 6" flames puffing out of the viewport due to 'drumming'.)
Remember the leaning coach? Turns out it was sitting in a string of cars
behind the pass train that was waiting for it's time to pull off toward
the station. Before the gauge on #500 reached 10 PSI the Rusk train was
departing for the depot and those cars were ripe for the switching. The
fireman I had been assisting found a watcher for #500 then we and an
engineer hopped on the RS2 and started for the three recently exposed
coaches sitting down on a siding. The fireman acted as brakeman while I
tryed to feel usefull running back and forth in the RS2's cab giving the
engineer signals when he couldn't see the fireman. All in all it was very
exciting and you'd be suprised just how fast 20 MPH can feel when you're
in the cab or on the footboards of a switcher! Long story short, we
didn't do much other than crawling all over that coach looking at spring
levels and making guesses. They still aren't sure why it's leaning even
after replacing the most-compressed spring.
Next on the list was lunch at a small buffet-style place in downtown Rusk.
This place reminds me of where I spent the first 8 years of my life in
back-woods TN. It just helped make the whole week that much more surreal.
{;]
Back at the shop the afternoon train had come in and #400 was sitting by
the fueling tower (you know, the big pipe that sticks up out of the
ground? I can't recall what it's called.) 400 is a decently small Mikado
that resides at Palestine most of the time and starts the day from that
end of the line. I have to say that this was my favorite of the engines
I saw there, mainly because it seems like the smallest. It has the
smallest drivers of the bunch and runs a Vandy-style tender. The engineer
was also all go and very little waiting around even while still being a
very smooth driver. While I was poking about here and there on this loco
I was informed that I could accompany them out for brakeman's duties when
they went back to re-couple with the passenger train awaiting it's return
to Palestine.
Needless to say I didn't have to be asked twice. :) The brakeman and I
jumped into the cab with the engineer and fireman and, after a few
minutes, off we went. It was a pretty straighforward affair of pulling
past the sideing switch in front of the train, throwing the switch, and
backing onto the train. There was lots of hand signaling involved though
and the actual coupling was all sorts of interesting. Back till the pin
drops, check for good coupling, back to bunch the coupler, set the brakes
'cause we're goin' in! Connect the brake hoses and open the valves on
both cars before realeasing the hand brake then it's off to check the
brakes. This involves kicking one pad on each car to ensure they are
actually tight and holding. Once they're all seen to be good a fist in
the air signals release and we go back up front ensuring that all are
loose. At that point the train is ready to go and just waiting for the
time to be right. At five minutes to departure the whistle is given a
long pull to let everyone know their time is limited and five minutes
later the train rolls out of the station leaving a brakeman and a railfan
waving at all the happy smiling people headed back to their vehicles in
Palestine.
Walking back along the tracks gave us the time needed to set the switches
for #300's return... then it was more work on the leaning tower of
heavyweight. We poked and prodded and removed the main brake-linkage so
that the truck could be removed later. Other than this there wasn't a lot
to be done with it.
Somewhere in this whole mess of stuff we ended up setting the newly
rebuilt pop valve on #500. This involved running the boiler up to
pressure while the technician squated on a pallet that had been raised up
to the level of the valves with a forklift. Everyone was given earplugs
to content with the constant whoosh of steam we were about to experience
and the fire was stoked a bit more. When the pressure hit 190 PSI the
tech cranked down on the adjustment nut until the valve was blowing full
bore. The fire was brought down to idle and the pressure started to drop
off. When all was quiet we repeated the whole ordeal to verify opperation
a few times then the fuel cut was pulled and the loco was allowed to cool
slowly.
Later in the day #300 returned and we were at the station to do the needed
duties for her. Disconnect from the train and go 'round the wye before
connecting back up to the other end of the train. This time though the
train was pushed back into the maintanence yard where it was parked for
the night. The loco was then uncoupled and moved over onto the line where
the coach was straddling the inspection pit. we pushed to coach out of
the service bay for the night and then rolled the loco back in to
temporarily park her over the bay for greasing and her daily inspection.
I had never before been under a running loco of any type and I must say
it's an interesting experience. Those axles are _HUGE_ and there's so few
parts between the frames that you can litterally stand up under the middle
of the loco without touching anything so long as you watch out where the
boiler is. :) Grape jelly (a purple synthetic grease) was applied to
most of the outside moving parts and all the bolts and nuts were tapped
with a small hammer by the inspector (one of the engineers?) I later
learned that the inside journals are greased once a week as well as the
power reversing gear. Oiling takes place in the mornings and the engine
is steam cleaned once a week also.
With that completed I was instructed to cap the stack and watched as lots
of valves were closed for the night.
I've got to say that this was a day that I will not forget for some time
to come! Thos only thing better would be if I could come back and do it
all again. So I set out for the campgrounds with my tent and setup for
the night. I was instructed that if I arived at 7AM the next morening I
could assist with #300's hostling duties.
Now if only I hadn't had to sleep drenched in sweat from the heat and
humidity. {:(
Trot, the fox who just might tell you about Friday if he gets the
time... };]
/\_/\ TrotFox \ Always remember,
( o o ) AKA Landon Solomon \ "There is a
>\./< [EMAIL PROTECTED] \ third alternative."
