Bret is the voice of Mickey Mouse.
Rod Stewart and Sam Posey are also avid train guys.
I guess when you are the voice of Mickey Mouse, you can afford a (half-scale) train.
Very cool nonetheless.
If Nick is into it, I would love to have him explain what each of these controls do (which seem simpler than a large train, but I suspect are not). I am especially curious what those knobs on the right do, which seem to be some sort of drains. Maybe bleeds?
It looks like the primary controls are the 4 levers (on is in his hand) and the red knobs (I suspect they are red for a reason). I would expect more pressure gauges. I am guessing he is looking at the water level(?)
In reply to aircooled :
Well, he's on the fireman's side of the engine (American railroad equipment is right-hand "drive") so his hand is likely on the firing valve, since the engine is oil-fired. He is looking at the water sight glass for the water level in the boiler. The hand wheels on the backhead can control a bunch of stuff; steam supply for the turbogenerator for the lights, drain valve for the sight glass, air for the blower (pumps air up the stack to improve draft when not moving), blowdown valve for the boiler. I can't see the control for the injector, which adds water to the boiler, might be up around the other side of the firebox, or it could be on the engineer's side. When I ran N&W #611, that had the injector on the engineer's side, but that also had a sight glass for the engineer.
On the engineer's side, the big vertical handle with the trigger is the reverser. Yes, it allows you to change direction, but it also controls how long you admit steam into the cylinders throughout the stroke. Having it all the way forward or backwards (slang is "down in the corner") will give you a ton of power, but limited speed and you'll consume lots of steam. As you move it back towards center ("hooking it up") it's less power but more efficient and higher speed and nearly vertical is referred to as "the company notch" because it's he most efficient and saves the company money. On newer, bigger engines, that handle works an air cylinder that adjusts the valve gear, and that's a "power reverser". Don't be fooled by the term "power", I'm 6'3" and 250lbs and I still had to stand up and really put my whole body into it and horse on it, and I've seen smaller guys put one boot on the backhead and shove with their leg while holding the lever to work it. Older or lighter stuff, the reverser is hooked directly to the valve gear with a reach rod and they're a real nightmare, especially because when they can get worn and jump, or "crash" forward, and you have to try and catch it. Guys had their arms broken or were damn near thrown through the cab window like that. Reversers can be called a "Johnson Bar" as well, but literally no one knows why. The term's origin is lost to time.
Another big handle, above the backhead and parallel to the floor with a trigger grip, is your throttle. Pretty self-explanatory, controls the amount of steam you're admitting to the cylinders. You push forward to close it, pull towards you to open it. Depending on boiler pressure and whether it's a dome throttle or front end throttle, it can put up a helluva fight. Strasburg #90, which is a saturated steam engine with 200psi boiler and dome throttle, I could work singlehanded. N&W #611, a superheated engine with 300psi boiler and front end throttle was like a wrestling match.
The other small horizontal handle below the throttle is the brake handle. Really weird that there is only one; usually you have two, one to independently control the locomotive's brakes, and a second to jointly control the locomotive and cars' brakes. That rope hanging from the roof is for blowing the whistle. I can't see a rope for the bell, or a switch if it has an air-ringer, and the steam gauge, air gauge and speedometer are also all out of frame. The cylinder cocks aren't visible either, the lever for those is usually on the floor ahead of the engineer. When you sit for a while, you'll get condensation under the cylinders, so you have to open the cylinder cocks to drain the condensation out of the cylinders for the first revolution or two of the drive wheels, unless you want bent piston rods or broken cylinder caps. If you've ever seen one take off and it's blowing tons of steam out of the bottom of the cylinders, that's the cylinder cocks. You also have to open those to "drift" or coast an engine; you open the cylinder cocks, move the reverser one notch off center and grab a tiny bit of throttle to open the snifting valves (named for the snift noise they make), and then you coast along.
In reply to NickD :
OK, thanks for the explanation. It does create a few revelations for me. One is: I actually know the "Johnson Rod" reference, for a really stupid reason. I specifically remember the main character in the movie The Jerk (Steve Martin), yelling out about the Johnson Rod when he is yelling instruction to the brat kid who stole the mini-steam engine he was operating!
The other is, I always thought, if put behind one of these, I could probably figure out how to get it to move (hopefully without it blowing up). Based on your descriptions, that seems HIGHLY unlikely now!!
In reply to NickD :
You got me curious about the turbogenerator.
https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/locomotives/how-steam-locomotives-generate-electricity/
In reply to aircooled :
Yeah, getting moving is very busy. You open the cylinder cocks, bail off the brakes, put the reverser all the way forward, engage the bell, give two quick blasts on the whistle (two short whistles is the signal for starting forward), then open the throttle up. After you start moving, you turn off the bell, then shut the cylinder cocks after a couple revolutions (a lot of places will go like a quarter mile with them open, but that's mostly spectacle, as I was told by the old Strasburg Chief Mechanical Officer) and then you start hooking up the reverser and adjusting the throttle.
NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to NickD :
You got me curious about the turbogenerator.
https://www.trains.com/trn/railroads/locomotives/how-steam-locomotives-generate-electricity/
Basically take a turbocharger, remove the cold side impeller, and attach an alternator/generator to that side. Also referred to as a dynamo. They're super loud, with this constant whine, and they're not terribly powerful with the output: they only light the lights on board the locomotive
In reply to NickD :
LOL, I'm learning! I got most of that from my marine boiler / reciprocating engine experience but missed the throttle lever (hard to see if you don't know where to look) and the hand firing valve in his left hand. Thanks for your detailed answers, I can't think of many other places where I could see these types of subjects discussed so intelligently.
Here in MA even low pressure stationary steam boilers are required to have not only the water gauge glass but also the "try cocks" (those two small valves with wooden handles to the right hand side and the elongated funnel under them). One valve is below the normal water line (should see water if you open it if normal level) and the other is above the water line (should get steam under normal conditions). That way if the gauge glass is broken or otherwise blocked off / engineer suspects it's not correct there's a second method of verifying where the water line is.
When I visited the train museum in Portland, an old guy gave me a personal tour of their Southern Pacific 4499 when he found out that I knew a teeny-tiny bit about steam engines (In steam cars, not locomotives).
I was very surprised to learn that most locos are single-expansion engines. Also impressed that the charge from the cylinders is exhausted up the flue. The draught that boiler has must be incredible.
More people need to get up close and personal with these things so they can learn how massive they really are. 433 tons is a crazy number to wrap your head around.
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