Neat video of #2102 climbing a grade with the hopper train. The title is a little clickbait though. I wouldn't say it's "insane" wheelslip, it's pretty standard for an engine climbing a grade in the rain. Even funnier is that that's the second title because it was originally uploaded as "#2102 nearly stalls on Hometown Hill" until people started commenting that it never nearly stalled and it's not on Hometown Hill.
The man himself, Andy Muller, in the hot seat aboard the #2102
I knew that #425 is due for her 1472 at the end of this year, and had heard that they had gotten started early. Apparently not true. They are making some minor repairs, like the stack had developed some leaks, and are going to run it later this summer and fall and then in November it will be taken out of service for her 1472. Right now she's listed as hauling some of the Fall Foliage Excursions, but hopefully she makes some appearances on the Lehigh Gorge Scenic.
Nick, were you surprised about UP's press release as I was?
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Extremely. Especially because the museum says they fully intend to return not only Challenger #3985, which has been silent since 2010, but also 2-10-2 #5511, which hasn't run since the '50s, to operational condition. This museum will interchange with Iowa Interstate, which has proven to be steam friendly (they run the two imported Chinese QJ 2-10-2s), and the MILW #261 guys are moving to the location as well. I find it funny that Union Pacific says that's a "small portion" of their heritage fleet. Seems like a pretty damn big chunk to me.
I am particularly interested in #5511, because this would be the first American built 2-10-2 to operate since the end of steam and the #5511 is one of only two surviving locomotives with Young valve gear. The condition of the #5511 is hotly debated. According to some, this locomotive is in immaculate condition with rumors saying “it would only take a couple of weeks to restore”. Others say that being used as a stationary steam plant at Green River was hard on the boiler and a bunch of the important controls and gauges were robbed from the cab. The only thing I know for certain is that the #5511's piston rods were torched off when it was moved from Green River to Cheyenne. Other than that, it's been tucked inside the Cheyenne Round house for 6 decades.
I'm also curious what tender they are sending with #3985. Rather than restore the running gear on #4014's tender and convert it to holding oil, they swapped the tender from #3985 onto #4014.
Kinda sad to see the #6936 go. I always wanted to see them pair that up with #4014, since they were both the largest of their era, #4014 for the steam era and #6936 for the diesel era. They used to run it with both #3985 and #844 but I'm not sure what it's current mechanical condition is. As of 2017, a page posted on UP's website said the locomotive "now travels on occasion as part of the UP Heritage Fleet." But a page posted in 2019 does not describe No. 6936 as operational. Granted, they're a pretty basic machine for their size. A DD40AX is literally just two SD40s on a common frame with 4-axle trucks. If you have a good frame, body and trucks, you can pretty much just part out a pair of SD40s to make one run.
It rains in the midwest. The Challenger could go back to coal. All the other locomotives you mentioned are on coal.
In reply to LS_BC8 :
The #261 is actually in the process of being converted to oil-fired. And I've heard that when they were coal-fired, the 3900s were mean SOBs to fire.
In reply to NickD :
I'm not familiar with RRMHA, but that's a whole lot to basically take on overnight. Though I read their new shop is pretty big, so maybe they can tackle them all?
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
The RRHMA doesn't really exist yet. They bought the old National Railroad Equipment repair shops at Silvis with intent to turn it into a museum. It's not open yet, but it'll basically be the Steamtown of the Midwest (hopefully, with more steam).
Definitely seems perhaps a little overly ambitious to me. I know that #3985 needs a lot of work. It got run pretty hard during the Steve Lee era which was why Ed Dickens parked it as soon as he took over. There were also common parts between the Big Boy and the Challenger and when they were restoring #4014, they supposedly swapped a bunch of parts from #3985 over to #4014.
Also, I swear if I have to read one more "ThEY NeEd tO PuT THe 6-ChiMe BaCK oN" comment about Reading #2102, I'm going to lose it. Andy Muller spent a couple million dollars returning a steam locomotive to operation, something he really didn't need to do, and you're sitting there complaining about what whistle is on it? Talk about ungrateful. Even more irritating when they refer to the 6-chime whistle as "the original whistle". No, the single-chime freight hooter is the original whistle for #2102, the 6-chime is off of a G-3 Pacific and was added after #2102's retirement.
In reply to 914Driver :
It's like an early Track-mobile. You drive it across the tracks, drop the railroad wheels down, lift the road wheels up, and then it can be used to push around a single car. It has a Willys Jeep engine for propulsion and presumably some sort of crazy gear reduction to give it sufficient oomph to move cars. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the other parts are unobtanium though, and a guy said a museum in Arkansas had three of them that worked at one point, but they all eventually broke parts that couldn't be fixed and are all parked.
UP #5511 shortly after its retirement from being used as a stationary boiler at the Green River facilities. It also made a brief appearance in UP's Last Of The Giants documentary about the Big Boy, as an example of the motive power progression. By that point, the piston rods had been cut, so for it's appearance it is actually being pushed by a diesel just out of frame and the smoke out of the stack is from a couple tires that they tossed in the smoke stack and lit on fire.
I did notice that Union Pacific is not relinquishing ownership of #838, the other 4-8-4 that they have stashed at Cheyenne. It has a one-piece cast frame that collected water in some difficult-to-access location that then froze and cracked the frame. They've since used it as a parts for #844, swapping out the lead and trailing trucks, sections of the firebox, a couple of driver sets, pistons, rods, valve gear, even the headlight and bell have been pilfered from it. The joke I've heard is that UP should swap the number plate over too, because between the amount of donor parts from #838 and the replacement of original parts with new parts, there's more #838 to #844 than there is original #844. As to why UP held onto it, I've heard a couple guess. One is that, what museum really wants a locomotive that is missing a bunch of it's parts? Another is that considering it's missing so many components, moving it from Cheyenne to Silvis would be difficult. The third that I've heard is that UP has long entertained the thought of swapping #838's boiler onto #844's frame, since it has much less use on it.
Well Nick, CSX continues to step up their game on the NO&M sub. I noticed the other day they'd stacked ties all along the roadbed through town & they're getting them replaced today.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Boy, they're really trying to look like they're on their best behavior. You ought to go out there and yell "Hey, ya'll getting ready for those Amtrak trains?" See what their reaction is.
The STB hearings are not going well for Class Is. CSX was the only one whose president bothered to show up, which immediately got UP and BNSF chewed out. They're all getting yelled at for the fact that years ago, as they executed mass layoffs and idled hundreds of locomotives as part of Precision Scheduled Railroading, they all sent letters to the STB assuring that there would be no degradation of service and they would be ready for any traffic spikes thrown at them. Now customers are saying that they aren't being serviced in a timely manner, and Class Is are saying it's because of crew and motive power shortages. STB chairman waved those same letters in front of them saying"What’s changed since those letters were written? The same CEOs are still here. PSR is still here.”
"This is not a pandemic-related issue. We’re dealing with years of cuts that have gutted the rail network that’s making these service issues inevitable,” said Chris John, President and CEO of the American Chemistry Council. “Precision Scheduled Railroading is just doing less with less.”
CSX president Jim Foote said he was hiring employees as fast as possible but then when asked just how many employees they planned to hire this year, he had no clue, which drew a lot of scorn from STB members. Foote then tried to push for one-man crews, saying that if they could run single person crews they could spread the existing employees enough to cover shortages (and, of course, work them to death).
It looks like the downsides of PSR are coming home to roost
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Steamtown is resuming excursions for the first time since 2019 this year. This includes both the Scranton Limited yard hops and longer trips to Cresco/Tobyhanna/Gouldsboro/etc. The Facebook post says "We plan to operate both steam and diesel excursions this season" although fails to offer further clarification on when they would be running Baldwin #26. I assume for the diesel trips they are either using the Nickel Plate GP7 or the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society "DL&W" F3As. They have the two Reading FP7s but those are out of service, last I knew. Progress on Boston & Maine #3713 has also gone completely radio silent.
NickD said:In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Boy, they're really trying to look like they're on their best behavior. You ought to go out there and yell "Hey, ya'll getting ready for those Amtrak trains?" See what their reaction is.
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that!
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:NickD said:In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Boy, they're really trying to look like they're on their best behavior. You ought to go out there and yell "Hey, ya'll getting ready for those Amtrak trains?" See what their reaction is.
Damn, I wish I'd thought of that!
Be prepared to run when they throw stuff at you!
Pretty cool to see that today's Google Doodle is actually railroad-related. They are celebrating Elijah McCoy's birthday. McCoy was a black mechanical engineer born in Colchester, Ontario in 1829 who was educated in Scotland. He returned to North America and moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he got a job on the Michigan Central Railroad as a fireman and oiler for locomotives around 1870. At the time, frequent stops had to be made to manually lubricate the cylinders, rod journals, and valve gear. McCoy put his engineering degree to work and in 1872 he invented and patented an automatic lubricator, allowing locomotives to run faster and stop less. He continued to invent until late in life, obtaining as many as 57 patents; most related to lubrication but others also included a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. Lacking the capital with which to manufacture his lubricators in large numbers, he usually assigned his patent rights to his employers or sold them to investors. Lubricators with the McCoy name were not manufactured until 1920, near the end of his career, when he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company to produce them
The phrase "the real McCoy" is often attributed to Elijah McCoy, in that railroad engineers would request installtion of automatic lubricators on their locomotive, and seeking to avoid inferior copies, ask for the installation of a real McCoy lubricator system.
Adirondack Railroad announced their start of the regular season is on May 28th. The usual Utica-Thendara service is back, both round trip with layover and one-way trips, but they've discontinued the Thendara-Otter Lake trip. Now they have a 1.5 hour $19 Thendara-Big Moose roundtrip, a 3 hour Thendara-Beaver River roundtrip, and an impressive 9 hour round trip from Utica to the new northern terminus of Big Moose. I'm curious how they are going to pull of all those trips, unless they aren't all available on the same days. I suppose since there is a layover to go into Old Forge on the Utica-Thendara trip, it might be that everyone rides the same train to Thendara, everyone going to Old Forge gets off at Thendara and the rest continue on to Big Moose and back, and then picks up those that got off at Thendara. They're certainly going to need all 6 of their locomotives up and running.
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