Grassroots Railroad Sports?

NickD said:

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2020/11/canadian-pacific-no-2816-to-steam-again-for-holiday-train-video

Well, the word is out. Bit of a letdown. Since the regular CP Holiday Train has been canceled by Covid, they are going to make a Holiday Train video using #2816. But they are adamant this is a one-time deal and she won't even be leaving the yard. 

So, the reason for #2816 not going out onto the mainline is that the flues have expired in the ten years that she has been sitting, and since this is a supposed one-time deal, it makes no sense to replace the flues and superheater elements just to park it again. But I guess there is exemptions that apply to just moving it around the yard at low speeds.

Now some people, including Ross Rowland, are making predictions on this event. As they have pointed out, if CP is just going to make a video to distribute for the holiday, really why use #2816? It'd be easier to just use a diesel like all previous years and film that, rather than fire up a steam engine that has been sitting for 10 years. Or, really, you could just CGI the whole thing and make a quick video of CGI. Or use a montage of footage from previous years. The theory they are putting forth is that this is a test run by CP. If it generates a positive reaction and a lot of good PR, then they may look into bringing back #2816 for future events.As Ross Rowland put it, "With a diesel, it's a train. With a steam locomotive, it's a happening." He seems pretty certain that this will not be a one-time deal. 

Hopefully he is right, because #2816 is too pretty to keep locked away

Canadian here, sadly, nobody gives a damn about our history in this country. 

If it can be bulldozed, torn down or scrapped to be replaced with anything new then it gets the green light.

I'd love to see it happen and I would pay for a ride on it but I wouldn't hold out much hope for CP bringing that loco back from hibernation.

ShawnG said:

Canadian here, sadly, nobody gives a damn about our history in this country. 

If it can be bulldozed, torn down or scrapped to be replaced with anything new then it gets the green light.

I'd love to see it happen and I would pay for a ride on it but I wouldn't hold out much hope for CP bringing that loco back from hibernation.

Hopefully you are wrong on this one. There is at least a chance, considering they are firing it up even for this.

I have heard some of the difficulties in preserving history in Canada. One gentleman, responsible for the restoration of Canadian National #6167, has gone in depth on how badly the city of Guelph botched it. He and a group of people spent 6 years cleaning and painting and fixing up the #6167. The city decided to move it into the city to be better displayed, and the original plan and budget called for a roof over the engine and a 6-foot fence around it. The area they moved it to was a rough part of town, on a dead end street, surrounded by bars and clubs. They never constructed the roof or fence. While the site was being constructed, the construction was vandalized, and then the locomotive was tagged within a week. People vandalized and stole parts off the engine. City officials were down there chopping off parts that were perceived as dangerous, which wouldn't have been an issue if the fence had been constructed so that no one could cut themselves on jacketing. Then it turned out that the city didn't own the property it was on and had to pay rent. And then it was revealed that the city had been planning a big GO Transit depot at that spot since before the decision was made to move #6167 there, so now the city is having to move it again, and again is not putting a fence or roof around it and is locating it next to a main road where it can get salt from the roads slopped on it. 

Here is the recounting of the whole ordeal. You can watch as the guy telling the story goes from being cheerful about them fixing up #6167 to being absolutely furious as the city refuses to listen to him and makes mistake after mistake after mistake. He says he basically got run out of the city afterwards and hasn't returned since.

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36603

So which would be cheaper to overhaul, 2816 or 2860 ?  I had heard that 2816, being a friction bearing locomotive caused some operation headaches.

I hope I'm wrong too.

In reply to LS_BC8 :

I believe #2816 is the better choice. CP actually owns that one, unlike #2860, and that's always a positive. Also, I have no clue on the mechanical condition on #2860, but I do know that when the economy hit the skids in '08, CP spent all of 2009 going through #2816 with a fine-toothed comb. And then after all that work, they barely operated it in 2010 before parking it. Apparently that's standard procedure CP steam engines, because Steamtown did a bunch of work to #2317 in 2007 and then parked it in 2010 when the flue time ran out.

In 2007, CP actually looked at acquiring #3101 for use in their excursion program. CP #3101 is one of only two 4-8-4 Northerns that CP owned, both built by CP at their Angus shops. They wanted the flexibility of a two-engine program, and the big K-1 Northerns were also more powerful than a Hudson. #3101 is owned by IPSCO in Regina, Saskatchewan and is in pretty sad shape, so it would have been nice to see her get rescued. CP and IPSCO couldn't agree on price, then the economy went belly-up and then Hunter Harrison did his thing at CP and it never panned out. Too bad, because #3101 would have been quite a sight doubleheading with #2816.

Sister #3100 is in in much nicer shape in Ottawa. Sadly, it doesn't have the smoke deflectors on it either.

Both engines were built as a dual-purpose Northern but reportedly held down a nighttime passenger and mail run for most of their life, making photos of them kind of scarce. Later in life they lost the smoke deflectors and were converted to oil burners, finishing out their years hauling freight.

Next time I am in Regina I will need to see if I can get some pictures of 3101. I think I know where it should be. 

Hey Nick, this “flue time” seems to be a common denominator in many of your steam locomotive descriptions.   Is this an internal inspection of the boiler pressure vessel? The firesides of the boiler? Both?   All my steaming involved marine applications, not familiar with this and I’d love some details when you have a minute.  

11GTCS said:

Hey Nick, this “flue time” seems to be a common denominator in many of your steam locomotive descriptions.   Is this an internal inspection of the boiler pressure vessel? The firesides of the boiler? Both?   All my steaming involved marine applications, not familiar with this and I’d love some details when you have a minute.  

Its a part of FRA regulations. Every 1472 days of the boiler being fired up (which equates to four years of operation) or 15 years since the last inspection, whichever comes first, you have to pull all the flues and superheater elements and replace them, along with an in-depth inspection of the boiler and firebox. Some operations, like Strasburg or Steamtown, who run their steam locomotives frequently hit the 1472 day limits first. Others, like Grand Canyon Railroad, which runs their steam engines maybe two or three weekends a year, hit the 15 year limit first.

Used to be you could actually file for a flue extension, where you would pull a couple flues out, show them to an FRA inspector, and then get a 1 year extension if they were in good enough shape. I know the Cumbres & Toltec folks said that due to access to really good quality water, in the '90s they actually had some locomotives with flues from the early '70s, and they run steam locomotives every day. I believe the extensions went away in 1995 after Gettysburg Railroad had the crown sheet failure that resulted in a near boiler explosion. 

It also used to be that if you fired the engine up once in a month, it deducted the entire 30 days off of the 1472. So whether you ran it one weekend or all 30 days, it counted as 30 days off of the 1472. I forget when they changed that one.

In reply to 11GTCS :

These are fire tube boilers, as opposed to a water tube boiler like in some steam cars. The flues in question carry the fire from the fire box to the smoke stack within the ''water" vessel.

CP seemed to have an issue with 8-drivered passenger locomotives. In 1914, CP experimented with a pair of small Mountains, class H-1, that they built at Angus to use as more powerful passenger power. For whatever reason, they decided to not build anymore and instead went on to own another 293 Pacifics, all of which were actually larger than the H-1 Mountains, in addition to the 205 that they already owned. The H-1 Mountains later lost their class to the H-1 Hudsons, being reclassed to I-1s, and both were retired and scrapped by '45.

Nick, Turner, 

Thanks for the detailed replies, that explains a lot to me.    I'm very familiar with firetube boilers, I worked on a ton of them when I was in the van and yes very similar to the design of a locomotive boiler.  They're still very common for large building heat up here both steam and hot water.  Cleaver Brooks is the most common manufacturer we see, they use a 4 pass design that until the advent of the condensing gas hot water boilers was the most efficient hot water design available.  Fire tube designs were extensively used for marine propulsion prior to the 1930's but were gradually replaced by watertube designs as steam pressures increased and oil fired burners became more commonplace.     

The Gettysburg Railroad can be thanked for the 1472 day rule. They never did maintenance. Had bad reading water glass and plugged tri cocks. Ran the water low  and melyed the crown sheet and filled the cab with steam.

LS_BC8 said:

The Gettysburg Railroad can be thanked for the 1472 day rule. They never did maintenance. Had bad reading water glass and plugged tri cocks. Ran the water low  and melyed the crown sheet and filled the cab with steam.

Don't forget no lighting for the gauges from a failed turbogenerator, a leaky fitting at the feedwater heater causing it to lose most of the water that was supposed to be going into the boiler, poor water quality and treatment that and crews that didn't know to blow down the boiler and resulted in scale buildup on the firebox crown sheet and flues. The crews also didn't know how to read the sight glass, so they didn't know that only half inch fluctuations weren't normal, which would have clued them in that it couldn't be trusted. And that was just the boiler stuff. There was other stuff like wheel flanges that were too thin, falsified paperwork, crews cutting passenger cars loose and fly-switching them with passengers on board, roadbed ballast that was shale instead of gravel. Its amazing they didn't have an incident earlier