Grassroots Railroad Sports?

The #492 crossing a low wooden trestle at Aztec, Colorado on the Farmington Branch.  Among the K-37s, this engine had a relatively good reputation. A big advantage to this engine was that was fitted with a new boiler in 1948, replacing the old 1904 standard gauge Consolidation boiler. None of the other K-37s received this, and the #496 when it developed a cracked boiler in the '50s was outright retired and scrapped. The big thing was that in '48, the narrow gauge lines still had a fairly rosy future, but by the mid-'50s, traffic was dwindling on some lines and the D&RGW was trying to abandon or regauge as much of the network as they possibly could and needed less power. This new boiler was said to be a deciding factor when Cumbres & Toltec was evaluating either the #492 or the #497 for restoration last year, with the #492 getting the nod.

While the #491 was considered the best-steaming of the K-37s, the #492 was considered a fairly good engine, and the #499 was considered the best of the K-37s, the #497 is largely considered one of the worst.

First, it's important to realize that individual steam locomotives tended to have "personalities". Even brand new engines of a same design, manufacturer and batch would perform slightly different. One might ride a little worse, or one might steam much nicer, or one might be impossible to get a clean stack on. There was enough variance in production that there were discernible differences. On the D&RGW narrow gauges, these engines were subjected to hard use and frequent wrecks and rebuildings, which further developed their personalities.

The K-37s, due to being built at D&RGW's Burnham shops from old standard gauge Consolidations, were always a bit kludged-together to begin with. The big boiler was cobbled onto a frame, and the frames on most 490s cracked right over the trailing truck. The engines had a Chambers throttle. They had two valve surfaces and when they leaked, they were hard to open and worked basically as an on-off switch. Spotting the tender at water tanks was a nightmare, and according to those who ran them, if you came up short, you'd have to put one foot on the backhead and jerk the throttle with both hands to get it open, then slam it shut and go for the brake lever. They were a bit trickier to fire than the K-36s, because they had a longer firebox that didn't slop down towards the front like a K-36, and the firebox door was rather low, likely a result of it's reuse from the standard-gauge Consolidation. You had to stoop low and really wind up to chuck the coal towards the front, very unpleasant if you were a taller fireman. The steam dome was a bit too low, and you had to balance between keeping the water high enough that it didn't uncover the crown sheet on the grades, but also not too high to where you would pump water into the cylinders.

The #497 was involved in a pretty spectacular smashup in 1960, when it was doubleheading with the #498 in the winter and they derailed. The #498 cleaned the doghouse right off the #497's tender and they both went down over an embankment. Both tenders were written off and the #498's pilot plow, running boards and cab roof still lay in the same spot 60 years later. The D&RGW rebuilt both the #497 and #498, surprising at that late date considering that they had already gotten rid of the #490 and parked a couple others, but there was a reason. The D&RGW was trying to get rid of the narrow gauge network and felt that if they had to rebuild two engines, they could present the expenses to the ICC and go "Look, these tough conditions cause us a lot of financial heartache."

The #497 was put back in service with the #490's tender (to this day there are more K-37s than tenders) and ran until the end of freight on the D&RGW narrow gauge line, and then ended up stored at Durango all through the D&RGW's stewardship of the Silverton Branch in the tourist era and then was passed on to the Durango & Silverton when they took over in 1981. In 1984, to address the power needs of the operation, which was mostly making do with the old K-28s, they got the #497 running again. Worth noting that there was never an evaluation to pick the best engine. The #497 was restored to service by the D&S in Durango essentially because it was already there when Bradshaw bought the line. The #497 was left in Durango, along with all the empty freight cars it could have added to the last eastbound train because the only available division engineer to run it as the second engine laid off to attend his Mother's birthday party. The D&RGW couldn't reach agreement with the Union on deadhead wages to bus an engine crew over from Alamosa, so everything was left. The #497 and the #481 were both there and deemed "stored serviceable". D&S had fired up the #481 in '81 and run it to Silverton, the first K-36 to ever go to Silverton, and figured that the K-37s were basically the same engine and the #497 should work just fine.

According to those who ran it, the #497 was never quite right. It rode smoother than the K-36s but it had some serious tracking issues. It was very stiff, and was notorious for kicking curves out of alignment and on both roads, it was later traded to the Cumbres & Toltec,  it actually broke foot-long sections of rail out of the track in curves, and according to one engineer, once on soggy track, he literally saw the curve start to kink 20 feet ahead of the engine when the ground was wet. Some of that was due to a homebuilt lateral motion device on the lead drive axle that never worked right. The trailing truck also had some accident damage that wasn't fully resolved, and it always had issues and it had the spring equalizers come apart on it out on the road a couple times. There may have been some issues with the lead truck as well, since C&T swapped the #497s with the #492s and that helped some of the tracking issues, but it was still a hard machine on the road bed. The injectors were always problematic and after the water level in the tender dropped below 4000 gallons, they overheated and would not start to fire. The throttle had the usual issues, and ended up getting a redesign to solve some of them.

In the end, D&S traded off the #497 to Cumbres & Toltec for K-36 #482. D&S had also had the #493, #498, and #499 trucked in during the early 80s, anticipating a future return to service, but assumed that the #497's issues were endemic to the K-37 design as a whole. Once they traded off the #497, they also got rid of the #499 (ironically considered the best of the K-37s) and parked the #498 and #493 outside and left them there. It wasn't until in recent years that they realized that the K-37s would work fine and fired up the #493. The #497, after going to C&T in '91 ran until '02, although they were never very pleased with it either and it's been parked since then. They looked at restoring it, but chose the #492 instead, partially because of the new boiler but also because it doesn't have the accident damage that the #497 has as well.

An account of the "personalities" of the K-37s from actual D&RGW veterans who ran themL

• #490- a problem engine ,being experimental to begin with . It derailed frequently.
• #491. This engine was famous for its steaming ability. It was the only D&RGW narrow gauge engine with thermic siphons.
• #492. This engine had a relatively good reputation. It was fitted with a new boiler barrel in 1948, and would be a good candidate for rebuilding, better than 497.
• #493. This engine also had a good reputation. '
• #494 and #495. Both of these engines were notorious for their terrible throttles.
• #496. A cracked boiler or steam dome made this the first engine to be retired.
• #498. This was also a relatively good engine.
• #499. The favorite. Alamosa crews tried to keep this engine on their end of the narrow gauge. Old-timers liked the permanent plow, which could wing rocks off the track with no stopping! Nothing but good things are said of this engine. Perhaps it had fewer of the endemic problems of the other 490s. It also was one of the few 490s ever used on passenger trains.

Also indicative was how some of the various engines finished out their careers: while the #490 was banished off to the Farmington Branch before it's early retirement, cannibalization and scrapping, while the #499 was kept at Alamosa. Although it is interesting that the #499, despite how well-liked it was, didn't run through to the end of the freight era on the D&RGW narrow gauge. Of the K-37s, it was #492, #493, #497, and #498 which all, except for the #492, ran until 1968. Then again, looking at that list, the #492 had a fairly new boiler, the #493 was pretty good, and the #497 and #498 had just had major repairs and rebuilds done in 1960 after their big accident.

I mentioned that there are more K-37s than tenders. This is the full saga of how that came to be:

When the #496 was scrapped in January of 1955 (it had been retired in '54 due to a crack that reportedly "ran the whole length of the crownsheet", potentially from a low water event), its tender was placed on the #491 which used this tender during the remaining years that it ran on the D&RGW. The #491's tender had some big patches in it and was a bit of a leaker, and the #496 tender was in good shape. The #491's tender was reportedly sold off in the 1960s for scrap value to a commune and has vanished from the face of the earth. Maybe it still exists, but nobody knows where it went. 

The #497 rolled over in the 1960 between Los Pinos and Apache Canyon and its tender was wrecked and written off. When it was put back in service, it got #490's tender, with #490 having been parked some time before that, possibly due to a cracked #4 drive axle. Officially the #490 wasn't retired until 2 years later, but it had already been cannibalized of some parts and would also donate it's entire smokebox front to the #492 after the #492 hit a rock slide. Photos show the #490 loaded on a flatcar missing most of it's running gear in 1964, and the engine is said to have been scrapped between 1965-1967 at Alamosa, although it's cab still remains. It was moved to Durango and sit's out behind the shop, and these days its more commonly known as Tim's Cook Shack and is open most Wednesdays for the weekly shop lunch. 

The #498 was wrecked in the same accident as the the #497, and it's tender was also written off then. It got the #494's tender when it went back into service, with the #494 having been pulled from service. Like the #490, the #494 wouldn't be officially listed as retired until 1962, although it was not scrapped.

So, there's two three missing tenders (#491's, #497's and #498's) with two scrapped engines (#490 and #496) But the whole tender situation gets even messier over the years, with a lot of swapping going on in the following decades. When #494 was sold by the D&RGW to the states of CO and NM, with the hand off of the Chama-Antonito section of the line in 1970, it did not have a tender as its tender had been given to #498 about 1960, as mentioned. So that #494 would have a tender, the D&RGW pulled the tender off #491 and gave it to #494, which was originally the tender from #496. Although this tender is now behind #494 in Antonito, the #494 never actually ran with this tender, since the #494 hasn't run since 1962.

This left #491 without a tender, and when it was given to the Colorado State Historical Society in 1979 and moved to Golden, it needed a tender. So the D&RGW pulled the tender off #499, which was stored at Durango, and shipped #491 to Golden with #499's tender, which remains behind #491 to this day at the Colorado Railroad Museum. Again, #491 never ran with this tender in it's revenue career.

Now the #499 is left without a tender. In this condition, it was sold to the D&S when the D&RGW finally dumped the Silverton Branch, and it was shipped off to Durango along with #493 and #498. When the D&S traded the #499 to Canon City in 1999 for the #486 (this was after the bad experience with #497 convinced the D&S that they wanted nothing to do with K-37s), the #499 needed a tender. The D&S pulled the tender off #498 and off went the #499 with #498's tender, which was the tender that had been taken from the #494 after the #498's bad accident. As far as anyone knows, the #492 (stored at Chama on Cumbres & Toltec, to be restored), #493 (operational at Durango & Silverton) and #495 (displayed in Antonito on Cumbres & Toltec) have kept their original tenders. And the #498 is the K-37 without a tender.

Similarly, the K-36s each had their own personalities. These came from a hogger who had run 9 of the 10 K-36s in 2005. The one he hadn't run was the #485, which flopped off the side of the Salida turntable in 1953 and was consequently scrapped. While the D&RGW rebuilt steam locomotives from a lot of accidents, even at later dates than this, apparently the way the #485 landed on it's side smashed up the running gear, frame and cylinders in a way that made it irreparable.

• #480. "This engine had problems. It hit something hard enough on the fireman's side to crush the left cylinder. The D&RGW did a creditable job brazing it back together, but I felt there was something not right with the ports. Consequently it was very slippery and there were lots of mechanical problems with the left side, culminating with a serious breakdown a couple of years back where the running gear flew apart with heavy damage as a consequence. It steamed well, and like other 480s, it could perform valiantly when called upon to do so."
• #481. "All around, this was one of the best of the class. It steamed well and ran square. Since it was put back in service in 1981, it has had few major mechanical problems."
• #482. "I liked this engine, but it seemed to have some very beat-up running gear, and rode rough. It steamed well."
• #483. "Some claim this was the best of the class. It was the best steamer, square, and could pull. It was favored by the D&RGW, and they fixed it after the bad 1958 wreck."
• #484. "My favorite locomotive. It was square, steamed as good as the #483, and could perform a miracle if called upon to do so. The only problem was for some reason the injectors were always temperamental on this rig. It ran a lot, and appears in more photos than any other K-36. God bless that old mill."
• #485. "No, despite rumors I never worked it. Legend has it that it was a good engine."
• #486. "I never liked this engine. It steamed poorly, always developing a dead spot in the fire in the right front. Also the butterfly firebox door worked when it wanted to, the only bad butterfly that I ever worked with."
• #487. "This was another engine I never cared much for. It was not the best steamer, and in later years it was never square. It had oval wheel centers and would pound badly when descending long grades or at speed (20mph). However, this was one of the most dependable locomotives I ever worked on, rarely developing mechanical problems."
• #488. "I used to say, "The 488 is a dog, but it it's MY dog!" I caught a lot of trips on that beat-up bucket of bolts. It steamed well, but consumed more coal than the other K-36s. It, too was a very dependable locomotive."
• #489. "This engine had its good and bad points. It had an excellent throttle and steamed very well. When I ran it in the 1990s, it always had overheated drivers. This may have been because when it received new axles it was not keyed correctly. It also was in a bad wreck in 1926, and wrecks are never good for locomotive running gear. The left sander never worked, so if it rained on Cumbres Pass, you were dead."

Photos of the #483 and #494 after the bad wreck that the #483 suffered in late September of 1958. The #483 hit a soft spot in the roadbed near Bocea Hill and derailed and the #494 shoved her all the way over, killing the #483's firemen in the process. In the first photo, the one gentleman is removing the running boards, air reservoirs and air line radiators with a torch, so that they can rig a strap around the boiler to pick the engine back up.

 Despite the rather late date, and the D&RGW's attempts to rid themselves of as much of the narrow gauge stuff as possible, always stymied by the ICC, they fixed up the #483. The incident also caused the addition of Rule 17-N in the Colorado Division Timetable: "Trains must not be doubleheaded on descending grade movements Cumbres to Alamosa, Cumbres to Chama, Chama to Gato and MP 443 (near Falfa) to Carbon Jct, except that in snow service trains may be doubleheaded when authorized." The incident, while not the last of the wrecks on the D&RGW narrow gauge, was the last wreck with a fatality.

Looking at the bottom side of the #483, you can see the wheel/frame arrangement, with the counterweights and crankpins on the outside, then the frame and spring rigging and bearings inside of those, and then the wheels inboard of the frame. This moved the frame out wider and allowed a bigger boiler to be set down lower between the frame. You can also see where the body of the tender is peeled away from the frame, and the tender on the #483 bore scars of that even to this day. The frame was tweaked, and there was shims between the tender body and the frame, and the coupler on the tender was almost outside the legal height range.

The #483 has always seemed an odd subject. It has considerable historical importance, since #483 was one of the few K-36's equipped for passenger service and often pulled the San Juan Express when a K-28 was not available and was used on many of the three-day Alamosa-Durango-Silverton excursions in the late fifties and early- to mid-sixties. She was also the helper on the last westbound revenue freight on the D&RGW from Alamosa to Chama on August 28th, 1968, pulled the last revenue freight from Chama to Durango on August 29th, 1968 and the last D&RGW freight to Farmington on August 31st, 1968. The #483 also assisted #473 in moving #481 and a short train of locomotive parts from Alamosa to Chama on December 5, 1968, and when #483 and a caboose returned from Chama to Alamosa the next day, it was the very last D&RGW train over Cumbres Pass. It was also the very first locomotive operated by the Cumbres & Toltec on September 1, 1970, and was often the only engine operating throughout the early years. So, a very important engine historically, and also considered to be one of the best of the K-36s, as mentioned above.

But the #483 hasn't run since 1977, and has been passed over for restoration, and has mostly served as a parts donor for the Cumbres & Toltec's four other K-36s. When C&TS began considering adding more motive power recently, as far as I know, the #483 wasn't even considered, and the #492 and #497 were the only candidates put forth. From what Cumbres & Toltec has said, the #483 was badly worn out by 1977, and the decades of cannibalization and sitting outdoors have made it too cost-ineffective for them to restore it. Fair enough. But what's odd (or frustrating) is that back in 2015, Durango & Silverton wanted the #483, since they had restored all the K-36s they had and were still under the impression that K-37s wouldn't work on their line, and was willing to offer up K-28 #478, out of service but restorable, in trade for the #483. The D&S has always been a little more well-heeled, so the condition of the #483 wasn't a deterrent to them. The deal fell apart, partially due to opposition of the D&S side that didn't want to give up one of the K-28s, but also due to opposition on the C&T side, who said that the #483 was too historically important to the organization, having been their first engine and the number of "lasts" affixed to it. So, the #483 sits at Chama, too important to be handed off to someone who might restore it to operation, but apparently not too important to be let sit outside and do nothing with it.

The #483 and the #480 leave Chama for Antonito with a tank train, ready to head over Cumbres Pass 

The #483 and #480 heading towards Cumbres Pass with a flanger and two cabooses.

Yesterday was the big eclipse, and I rode the Adirondack Railroad up to Old Forge. I rode the train up, so I didn't get any photos, but it was 8 or 9 cars with M420W #3573 and RS-18u #1835 in charge. I'd never ridden the bit between Remsen and Otter Lake, so that was all new territory for me. Trip went well, with no mechanical issues, and we just had to stop once or twice for crews to flag crossings, since the rails north of Remsen haven't seen a train since November last year and the rails were rusty enough to where the crossings weren't triggering. Unfortunately while it was sunny when we arrived at Old Forge, as soon as they shoved the equipment out of the way and the eclipse started, the clouds moved in and never left. Still, a decent trip.

Before the trip lefft Utica, I sat around and watched Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern working the east end of Utica Yard with C425s #2453 in Genesee Valley Transportation colors and #2455 in BCRail heritage paint. M420W #2045, also in BCRail paint but the other scheme, also made an appearance in front of the engine house. The lighting is terrible, because you're shooting into the sun, and there's a lot of weeds and stuff in the way because you can't get to the north side of the yard, so you're shooting across the CSX Chicago main and Adirondack storage tracks too, so the photos aren't the greatest. I'd never seen the #2455 out and running since the renumber and repaint, so that was kind of cool. I'd always wondered why it doesn't seem to be road power often, or why the Adirondack has never borrowed the #2455, and I have to suspect that maybe the #2455 is just tired. She smokes really bad every time they throttle up, and while all Alcos smoke a little when they notch up, the huge plumes of smoke are usually indicative of an engine that is worn out or in a state of disrepair.

I also caught a freight going through with a CSX SD70MAC, with the old EMD safety nose, which is something you don't see often here. It's usually all GEs on the lead. It also had a cool Burlington Northern hopper in the mix too.

Matt Giardino got a photo of the Eclipse Express racing north yesterday

Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum took this really neat photo of their ex-Erie depot at Industry during the eclipse yesterday

Arcade & Attica has reinstalled the cab on 2-8-0 #18 recently, bringing the ex-Boyne City Railroad Consolidation one step closer to operation. The #18 is the only operational large steam locomotive in the state of New York, and there aren't any other steam locomotives being restored to operation at this date, so it'll be good to have it up and running. The A&A said they hoped to have it running this spring, but with all steam locomotives, things happen at their own pace.

Some other good steam locomotive restoration news is that Wilmington & Western #98's is nearing the end of her 1472 rebuild and the W&W is hoping that the ex-Mississippi Central 4-4-0 should be back in service later this year. The #98 is a neat late-build 4-4-0 (1909, long after the arrangement had seen it's heyday), is one of four engines to escape the scrapping at Paulsen Spence's Louisiana Eastern, and is the the only standard-gauge 4-4-0 American in regular operation east of the Mississippi. She's been out of service since 2017, and this is one I'd like to see.

In reply to NickD :

The Frisco ran a handful of their 4-4-0s (Nos. 182-187) through a modernization program at the West Springfield Shops in the late '20s. These Modernized Americans had Walschaerts valve gear, Coffin feedwater heaters located in the smokebox, a superheated flue arrangement, and a reworked piston and valve chest. 9" piston valves controlled a pair of 17" bore x 26" stroke drive pistons. Four of the six also received a Nicholson thermic siphon. The resulting locomotives had a higher combined heating area than the original saturated steam configuration, and were widely considered to be classy little hot rods. All six of them served until the end of steam on the Frisco in the early '50s.

IMHO, they are one of the most attractive versions of the 4-4-0 ever built. 

The #98 when assembled and operational. A neat engine, built late for a 4-4-0 and fairly good sized too, with 69" drivers and 20,812lb tractive effort, but still saturated steam with inside Stephenson valve gear.

Recon1342 said:

In reply to NickD :

The Frisco ran a handful of their 4-4-0s (Nos. 182-187) through a modernization program at the West Springfield Shops in the late '20s. These Modernized Americans had Walschaerts valve gear, Coffin feedwater heaters located in the smokebox, a superheated flue arrangement, and a reworked piston and valve chest. 9" piston valves controlled a pair of 17" bore x 26" stroke drive pistons. Four of the six also received a Nicholson thermic siphon. The resulting locomotives had a higher combined heating area than the original saturated steam configuration, and were widely considered to be classy little hot rods. All six of them served until the end of steam on the Frisco in the early '50s.

IMHO, they are one of the most attractive versions of the 4-4-0 ever built. 

Those are a particular favorite of mine. Pretty much equipped with every feature they could, and very good looking. Its too bad that Frisco, who did save a lot of steam locomotives despite retiring them fairly early (unlike competitor Missouri Pacific, who dieselized at the same time and saved pretty much nothing) didn't set one of these aside or sell one to some small town. Those are also an interesting rare case of a steam locomotive replacing internal combustion locomotives in service: Frisco had been using a doodlebug with a trailer on those lines to handle passengers, mail and less-than-carload freight, but the reliability of the doodlebug was so disastrously poor that the Frisco dusted off these old 4-4-0s and put them back into service and retired the doodlebugs.

At one point, Wilmington & Western did put the #98 back into it's late Mississippi Central appearance for a special event, which included a centered headlight and oddly a bell both above and below the smokebox. No clue why the MC felt it had to have two bells, but clearly they did. The Railfan & Railroad Magazine coverage of the W&W #98's restoration did say "Once complete, look for a new appearance on 98, hearkening back to its days on Mississippi Central", which makes me wonder if they'll go back to this look again.

In preparation for it's Canada-USA-Mexico trip, Canadian Pacific #2816 has been out doing further testing. It's trip across three countries will begin on the 24th of this month at Calgary and then will make stops at Moose Jaw, Minot, Saint Paul, Franklin Park, Davenport, Kansas City, Shreveport, Monterrey and Mexico City to celebrate the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern-Kansas City Southern De Mexico merger.

A neat little detail is that that first auxiliary tender is actually made from a D&H Challenger tender. The D&H had it in MoW service, and when CP bought out the D&H in 1991 they acquired the tender and later repurposed it into a canteen for the #2816 when they restored it to service. I'm hoping that next year, with the #2816 having made her big run, and being equipped with PTC, they'll run her on the Holiday Train, which runs on the old D&H as far south as Albany.

The #2816 out doing testing. If the whistle sounds odd, that's because it's one of the "button whistles" that CP preferred on later steam engines. Rather than a lever or pull cord/chain, these had an air actuator on the whistle and a button in the cab. That made the whistle basically off or full-on, which meant you couldn't "quill" the whistle for different tones and volumes as you worked the whistle cord. I don't believe any US railroads used this setup, and in a lot of restorations, the button whistles were removed from CP engines because everyone wants to be able to "play" the whistle. I seem to recall that the imported Chinese QJ 2-10-2s were also so equipped, and also had them removed, and I'm not sure if the Chinese SY and JS Mikados that were imported also had those or not. 

The #2816 is a Steamtown escapee, having been acquired by Nelson Blount in 1964. The last surviving unstreamlined CPR H-1 Hudson, it was said to only have 35,000 miles on it since it's last major overhaul, but as far as I know, no consideration was every given to restoring it to operation. It sat outside in New England for 20 years, then moved to PA and sat outside for another 14 years. Photos of it at Steamtown at either location, Bellows Falls, VT or Scranton, PA, aren't terribly uncommon, but in this photo at Scranton in '95, you can tell that the years had not been kind. The blue on the boiler jacket had faded to white and there was some pretty serious rust, and I've read where people who saw it in person sad the thing was in bad shape. In 1998, BCRail was still running streamlined Royal Hudson #2860 and was looking for spare parts, and it became known that Steamtown was looking at selling off or trading the #2816 entirely. CP stepped in and traded something for the #2816, shipped it to the BCRail steam shops in Vancouver and had it restored to operation, which took three years and over $2 million. I italicized "something" in the last sentence because it seems like no one actually knows what exactly was traded for it. I've read "a diesel and some rolling stock" but no one can ever say what exactly. I don't know what diesel they would have gotten since I can account for all the diesels there; the ex-NKP GP9 was already there, as evidenced by the photo below, the ex-DL&W early EMC switcher isn't owned by Steamtown nor was it ever owned by CP, the "DL&W" F3s and CNJ RS-3 don't belong to Steamtown and were acquired later when George Hart's Rail Tours Inc. went under, and the Reading FP7s were also not owned by Steamtown or CP at any point and arrived years after the trade was made. I know someone said that the "rolling stock" may have been a boxcar and/or some flatcars to use for display or storage.

Those CP Hudsons are lookers, every last one of them. 

I'm usually not a fan of anything other than black on a steam locomotive, but CP did it right.