Grassroots Railroad Sports?

N&W 475 also has the cab feature of the back of the boiler in the cab.

In reply to LS_BC8 :

Extended backheads were pretty popular around that era, circa 1900-1910. Popular from manufacturers, not popular amongst crews. When I was running Great Western #90 at Strasburg, the engineer remarked that "The #90 is our Cadillac, big and power for days. The #89 is a clipper ship." I asked "What's that make #475?" He just stood there and thought a moment and said "#475 is #475." It wasn't said like that was a good thing either. Some of the Strasburg crew have nicknamed the #475 "the telephone booth" for it's cab size. I also remember reading some offhanded remark from Kelly Anderson, the former chief mechanical officer at Strasburg, where someone was saying it'd be neat to get #475 out to Roanoke along with #611 and #1218 and #2156, when #2156 was on loan to VMT, and his reply was to the effect of "I wouldn't care if the #475 didn't come back from Roanoke." So she may be a favorite with railfans, but the opinion isn't shared by the operating department.

Kelly Anderson did go on to say though that, while #475 was unpleasant to operate, it was a damned sight better than PRR #7002. In his own words:

PRR 7002 is the all time blue ribbon holder for best all-around miserable engine, and all others are only wannabes.

First off, her damned near deckles cab was always hotter than a rattlesnake’s ass, hotter than #475’s ever thought of being, and not much roomier.

Her fire door was larger and higher mounted than any of the others here, and when firing it’s heat always hit you square in the chest and face every time you threw in a scoop of coal.

When in full reverse, her Johnson bar was in the perfect position to whack your funny bone twelve times per eastbound trip on the Strasburg Rail Road, every time you swung to the left to reach for the automatic brake valve.

Her ash pan is wide open full length on both sides, a very good thing. So Pennsy corrected that by mounting the main reservoirs in front of that wide open ash pan so you couldn’t see in it at all except for a couple of feet at one end. To wash it out, you had to work the ash track hose blind for a few seconds, then walk to the end of the ash pan to peer in to see if you had hit the ashes you were aiming for. When you didn’t, walk back, pick up the hose and try again, trying not to hit your head on the main reservoir drains.

The rear end of the ash pan was over the 50” trailing truck wheels, and pretty much flat in that area, about 6” under the grates. So the rear most grates were “dead grates” with no way to clean them at all other than to shove their ashes forward with a small bent rake into the dump grates (which only opened about 5” due to the aforementioned proximity to the ash pan). To open the dump grates, you left the cab with a length of pipe to use as a cheater bar on the 18” long dump grate lever conveniently located behind the aforementioned main reservoir. You put the cheater on the end of the lever and then power lifted the pipe resting on your shoulder, half squatting under the main reservoir, while you removed the keeper pin with your free hand while trying not to hit your head on the main reservoir drain.

You opened the ash pan doors by taking the grate shaker handle (5’ long and about 30 lb) from the cab to put on the ash pan lever. You swung the handle to open the ash pan scraping the paint off the side of the main reservoir in the process, being careful not to get your fingers in between the handle and the reservoir. You couldn’t move the engine with the ash pan doors open, since they swung down below the height of the rail head, and if they caught on anything the doors would break and/or the linkage would be torn up as one of our hostlers found out the hard way one day.

Lubricating the valve gear was another adventure. The only way to see most of the lubrication points was to climb up on the rods, belly crawl over the frame and under the boiler between the #1 and #2 drivers. To grease the eccentrics, one of our hostlers developed the technique of belly crawling over the rail behind the #2 driver and standing up between the rails with his back to the fire box.

She was a very good steamer, and always on the pops. They were Coles brand, about the size of five gallon buckets and they hummed when they feathered. Imagine someone scraping their fingernails on a chock board amplified to about 120 decibels, all day long.

Pennsy had standardized dome lid holes, very small. #7002 has a dome throttle, very large. When you took the dome lid off, you couldn’t even see past the throttle into the boiler. The throttle is held in place by six nuts and bolts through flanges on the bottom of the throttle and the top of the stand pipe. None of these bolts are visible when the throttle is in place. They must be very tight, and there is virtually no room to work even a sawed off wrench, and the entire operation must be done by feel (with the tips of your fingers), without dropping any of the nuts, bolts, wrenches, or hammer into the boiler, all while the sharp dome lid studs are digging into your belly and you are playing “Twister” with the guy helping you work the tools or catch the parts. When hoisting the throttle out of the dome, it clears the dome lid hole by about ¼”. If you didn’t have the throttle rigged just right, it would get stuck halfway through the hole, more fun.
 

Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington posted a before and after separated by 30 years. The before is from 1990 and shows the beginning of construction on Bay 1 of the engine house at Sheepscot. The after is from 2020, and you can see how the enginehouse has expanded to three stalls, there's a yard and equipment. Pretty solid progress from such humble beginnings.

To come that far in 30 years, after starting with absolutely nothing, is pretty impressive. And they show no signs of slowing down. They are now building a 3-stall roundhouse around the Arm-Strong turntable, they are constructing at least one all-new coach, one all-new steam locomotive, a new boiler for their other steam locomotive, and are getting ready to open the new Mountain Division some time next year. They have announced that they met 156% of their 2021 fundraising goal for 2022. Yeah, they were hoping to raise $50,000 for next year, and raised over $85,000. And they are saying that sometime next year, WW&F #10 should see a fire in her firebox again.

In reply to NickD :

That's amazing news!

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Definitely a good time for narrow gauge fans, these past couple years. Cumbres & Toltec has restored some older engines like the #168 and #315, Durango & Silverton brought a K-37 back to life for the first time in decades, East Broad Top is being revived after a decade of dormancy, Maine Narrow Gauge Museum is beginning work to return Bridgton & Saco River #8 and Monson Railroad #4 to operation, and WW&F is going all-out.

I'm still amazed/shocked/a little scared by the fact that WW&F gets away without any air brakes. The original WW&F never had air brakes on any of their equipment. Their freight cars just used hand brakes, and their locomotives and passenger cars were equipped with Eames vacuum brakes, which were much less effective than air brakes. Also, since WW&F typically ran their trains as mixed service, they put the freight cars between the engine and passenger cars, and the freight cars didn't have pass-through piping for the vacuum brakes, so most of the time the passenger cars didn't even use the vacuum brakes. WW&F's modern incarnation still uses handbrakes on most of their cars, which are worked by combination conductors/brakeman. It took me a while to notice that when they were hostling WW&F #9 there wasn't the intermittent ka-thump-ka-thump-ka-thump of an air compressor, and then when they hooked on and got ready to go, five or six of the railroad's volunteers swung up on the end of the coach and manned a brake wheel.

B&O #1977 and B&O GM50 at the B&O Railroad Museum for a special event in 1977. The #1977 was numbered such in honor of 1977 being the B&O's 150th anniversary, while the GM50 was painted in a unique black and gold scheme in honor of EMD's 50th anniversary when delivered in 1972. Both of these GP40-2s still exist on CSX today and are supposed to be donated to the B&O Railroad Museum when CSX retires them. I say supposed to because there have been other instances where CSX stuff was earmarked for preservation and was instead sold off or run through a major rebuilding that leaves them unrecognizable. There are some that are hoping that CSX will repaint B&O GM50, now CSX 6063, will be repainted into the black and gold livery next year for EMD's 100th anniversary but that seems optimistic.

In reply to Duke :

Good one. That's the old MBTA F40PHs that are in storage. They auctioned a bunch of recently but they were just hulks. A lot of the major parts were either junk or had been cannibalized.

Baltimore & Ohio SD50s in pusher service dig in at the back of a coal train as it crosses the Cheat River at Rowlesburg, WV

Chessie cats prowl Bird Swamp in Franklinville, NY. This was the old Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad line, which was purchased by the B&O in '32. Shortly after this photo was taken over, Chessie Systems sold off this part of the Rochester Subdivision and it became the Rochester & Southern shortline, part of Genesee & Wyoming family. The line to Buffalo was also sold off at the same time, and also purchased by the Orange Plague, and became the Buffalo & Pittsburgh shortline.

A collection of Chessie Systems EMDs gathered around Raleigh Yard at Raleigh, West Virginia. Remnants of the steam era are still present, even in 1985

Chessie Systems power, including a GP38 on point and a GP30 at the back, climb Baltimore & Ohio's famed Sand Patch Grade

Probably the best-looking GP30s were those in Chessie Systems livery

The Chessie Systems colors could not redeem the Western Maryland chop-nose Geeps. There were plenty of early GPs and SDs wearing the Chessie colors, but all the ones on the B&O and C&O retained their high hoods until the day they died. Western Maryland on the other hand tried cutting down the hood on their GP9s, and the result was aesthetically lacking.

GE B30-7s rolling coal trains out of Clifton Forge, once the stomping grounds of mighty H-8 Alleghenies

C&O and B&O EMDs cross the B&O's famed Thomas Viaduct.

In reply to NickD :

Is it just me, or are most current class-1 liveries just not that good? I mean UP hasn't really changed, though it was never my favorite, and BNSF isn't horrible, but CSX and NS have as much charm as a laundromat. Excluding heritage units, of course. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NickD :

Is it just me, or are most current class-1 liveries just not that good? I mean UP hasn't really changed, though it was never my favorite, and BNSF isn't horrible, but CSX and NS have as much charm as a laundromat. Excluding heritage units, of course. 

Kansas City Southern's is pretty cool because it's a revival of the old Southern Belle livery and it's plenty colorful, but that one will possibly be disappearing in a couple years. BNSF's is a touched up version of the old Great Northern green and orange with some yellow accents, so the heritage there is kind of cool.

Canadian Pacific's has become worse and worse over the years, now it's just the unit is entirely painted in red with white lettering. I don't think Canadian National's is awful but it also has not changed since the '60s or '70s. Probably if they were to design an all-new livery, it'd be dreadful. I'm also not a fan of Union Pacific's Armour Yellow and gray. 

I think the current CSX "Yellow Nose 3", aka "Dark Future" livery of the dark blue with yellow accents is one of CSX's better liveries, but it's still pretty drab, as was the old Seaboard Systems gray with yellow and red accents. And Norfolk Southern has a long history of dull soulless paint schemes to fall back on. Norfolk & Western never had a particularly showy paint scheme for diesels, it was always black with white lettering or dark blue with yellow lettering. Amtrak seems to be turning a corner with the new Phase VI livery after the awful Phase V. It looks like they finally aren't afraid of using some bright color anymore.

They just all seem to be largely designed as soulless and corporate and risk-averse as possible. I could almost understand if it was a cost or ease of repainting thing, but, for example, the Chessie System scheme is really quite simple, just bands of yellow, vermillion and dark blue, but it's still bright and distinct and cool.  Same with Burlington Northern's cool old bright green and white (sometimes with bright orange accents). 

Then there were the Chessie Steam Specials. In honor of the B&O's 150th anniversary in 1977, Chessie Systems worked out a deal with Ross Rowland to run excursions over the B&O with Reading #2101, fresh off her American Freedom Train duty. A Reading T1 isn't the most visually-appealing engine, but centering the headlight, giving the smokebox a coating of graphite and applying Chessie colors did wonders. After 1977, the #2101 returned in 1978 with another year of trips and had a third season planned when the #2101 was damaged by a roundhouse fire at Silver Grove, Kentucky. Due to the heat of the fire (it wasn't just a wood structure that burned down around her, there were diesels parked nearby and their fuel tanks exploded and doused #2101 in burning fuel), neither Rowland nor the powers that be at Chessie felt comfortable running #2101 at mainline speeds.

Enter C&O #614. One of the C&O's excellent J-3a "Greenbriers" built by Lima in 1948, she was on display at the B&O Railroad Museum, still wearing her temporary number of 611 from her final days of operation. Rowland worked out a trade with the museum where he cosmetically restored #2101 to AFT colors and donated it to them and got C&O #614 in exchange. According to Rowland, #2101's solid bearings had always been a little finicky and had interrupted some trips when they ran hot, but #614 was fully-equipped with roller bearings on all axles and the rods. Being a C&O engine, she also had more of a historical tie to Chessie Systems. But it wasn't just passenger excursions that the #614 was run in. Chessie Systems was one of the big driving forces behind the ACE3000, an attempt to make a modern efficient steam locomotive in response to rising diesel fuel costs and their cheap and easy access to plentiful amounts of coal. So #614 was renumbered #614T and became a testbed, running in freight service and all sorts of other conditions with lots of data acquisition, all to help design a modern steam locomotive. Political infighting amongst the backers and fuel prices tanking derailed the ACE3000 program before construction even began on a prototype, but for a brief time in the '80s, you could find a steam locomotive earning her keep hauling freight on a Class I railroad. To this day, Ross Rowland insists that C&O #614's performance and efficiency were much better than believed by most people, although quite how good he has never said.

In reply to NickD :

Wow, I'd forgotten all about the ACE3000 program, but as a kid I was super-excited about it & followed it closely. 
 

I just found this vid on Chicago's Metra system. I've watched some of his other vids, but I'm really enjoying his bluntness & nsfw language. 
 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to NickD :

Wow, I'd forgotten all about the ACE3000 program, but as a kid I was super-excited about it & followed it closely. 

The ACE3000 program was interesting but it never made a whole ton of sense. Sure, they could potentially develop a locomotive that ran on a cheaper fuel source, and with advances in technology it could be more efficient than the steam locomotives of the '50s. But it still has the major issues endemic to steam locomotives: lots of  specialized maintenance and frequent fuel and water stops. Remember, NYC's Niagaras and N&W's class Js and class As were some of the most advanced and efficient successful steam locomotive designs, and even they lost out in terms of efficiency to fairly early diesels like EMD E7s and GP7s. And, reintroducing steam locomotives would require building a bunch of new infrastructure, like fueling facilities, shop facilities, new shop equipment, and a bunch of training for operating and service personnel. 

For those not as familiar with the ACE3000, it was a program in the mid-'80s involving Chessie Systems, American Coal Enterprises, Ross Rowland, and a few others to develop a modern steam locomotive as a response to rising diesel fuel prices. The design settled on was a cowl-bodied cab-forward 4-8-2 steam locomotive, with a pair of front and rear cylinders driving the 2 front and 2 rear axle, respectively, and an internal set of rods connecting the 2nd and 3rd rods, so it was not a Duplex drive. Rather than being fired on traditional dry coal, it was going to use a coal slurry. Also, the tender was matched in size to the locomotive cowl body, with a cab on the other far end, so it could be operated in either direction without having to turn it. Which brings up another issue: the tender was not powered, so you had a machine that was the size of two diesel locomotives, but only half of it was powered. 

Some political infighting and the sudden drop in diesel fuel prices tanked the project and all we are left with are some original artist sketches and scale models based off of those drawings.

When Rowland returned #614 to operation, he made an interesting modification to the tender. You can see in this photo that the coal bunker stretches almost all the way to the rear tender, which was not original. After having run excursions with both NKP #759, Reading #2100, and Reading #2101, he had learned that the hardest part of operating steam locomotive excursions was finding someone with a clamshell bucket to load coal. Water was easy to get, since any fire department with a tank truck could fill up the tender, and also you can run auxiliary canteen tenders and pump water between them on the fly. So he had #614's tender cut up to massively enlarge the coal bunker, at the sake of a smaller water cistern, and then towed one or two water canteens behind it. Of course, there are those that complain that the modification to the tender marred #614's looks.

When #614 later ran some excursions on NJTransit (which required something near an act of god to get permission for, thanks to the disastrous 1988 NRHS convention), it was also modified to have NJTransit cab signal system, be able to apply the brakes if it overran a red signal, and M.U. hookups to allow controlling diesels from the cab. According to Ross Rowland, the work was done by the NJTransit shops, and there was much cursing and swearing by the employees who were burdened with the task.

Sadly, #614 sits as a static display piece at the C&O Railway Heritage Center in Clifton Forge these days, still painted in the livery of the stillborn Greenbrier Presidential Express. A joint project between Ross Rowland and Jim Justice, owner of the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, and current governor of West Virginia. The resort owner had been interested in running steam-powered excursion trains from Greenbrier to Washington DC. To be known as the Greenbrier Presidential Express, Justice planned to use steam and diesel power in the project, but would have needed cooperation from CSX, Buckingham Branch Railroad, and Amtrak. It was ultimately canceled in May 2012 due to lack of funding, capacity problems on the CSX portion of the route, where a lack of passing sidings makes it difficult for Eastbound trains to gain headway against the flow of Westbound empty coal trains, and CSX's general reluctance to let steam engines and passenger service on their rails.