Photos from the Pennyrail Newsletter
American Locomotive Company will always be remembered as the birthplace of the Century line of locomotives. Thirty-two years after the last new locomotive rolled off the production line, Alco fans can still get their fix in The Empire State. Seen at Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad’s shops in Olean, NY on August 27, 2017 are just a few examples: M636 number 643, C424 number 326, and RS3M number 406. Photos taken from public property by Chris Dees.
The draft from a hard-working steam locomotive, in this case Union Pacific 4-6-6-4 No. 3985, draws sand from a scoop into the firebox and through the flues. The practice cleans the tubes of soot. Draft is created by the exhaust steam, still expanding, being forced through a nozzle directed to the stack. The force of the draft draws smoke, heat and gasses through the flues. More than one fireman lost his scoop to the firebox in the days without mechanical stokers.
There’s a tale about the rookie fireman, on a lunch break, cooking a steak on a shovel, (not an completely unusual event.) A trickster engineer opened the throttle wide, whereupon, there went the sirloin.
The 3985 was built as a coal burner, converted to oil like sister 4-8-4 UP 844 when they were saved from the scrapper and placed in excursion and executive service. The 3985 and 844 pull an occasional railfan excursion to this day. They will be joined by Big-boy 4-8-8-4, No 4014 in the relatively near future.
Credits: Pix by David Hoge / pix & text (partial) as seen in TRAINS Magazine special edition Steam Today – 2008.
The shot at left was sent to me by Fred Ripley, former WKNRHS member now living in Columbus, OH. Fred has done a great deal of photography on the C&O as mentioned in my editorial. There’s a lot of Chessie heritage in this shot at Levisa Jct. 4070 et. al. is entering Coon Creek SD with empties for Johns Creek, May 7, 1978. Fred has scanned many of his slides for the book, Chesapeake & Ohio – The Decades of Change – 1961-1981. Several of his shots were used.
Your editor, Bill Thomas, is at left with Darryl Whitworth and Max Ringwalt (deceased), watching a Chessie System work train pass by on the Logan Sub, at Rum Junction, West Virginia, just outside of Logan. See reference to this location in “Picking the Points” editorial. Thank goodness our chaperone and my high school math teacher and annual staff advisor Tom Ottinger was shooting for memories sake.
The classic curves of an EMD GP30 are always a crowd pleasing addition to any train, especially when its chrome (or in this case, nickel) – plated. On September 10, 2017, the Allen County, Ohio Historical Society hosted its annual Riding the Rails excursion from Lima, OH to Jackson Center, OH over the Indiana & Ohio Railway. The trackage is the former Detroit Toledo & Ironton mainline; power was Cincinnati Railway Company’s NKP GP30 number 901. Photo by Chris Dees.
A scene such as this is bound to bring tears to the eyes of any lover of steam locomotives. Scrapping of the steam fleet provided steady employment for many years in the 50s and 60s.
This picture provides a rare view to their inner workings. Pennsylvania Railroad L1s 2-8-2 No. 8280 is being scrapped at Port Newark, N.J. in 1958. With part of its boiler shell cut away, several major internal components are visible, permitting an unintended lesson in the workings of a steam locomotive.
The burning of coal in the firebox (1) produces hot gases. The gases pass through dozens of tubes and flues (2), which are surrounded by water in the boiler. The heat from the gases is transferred to the water, which turned to steam and is collected in the steam dome (3). The throttle valve in the dome regulates the flow of steam to the dry pipe (4), which feeds steam to the superheater (5).
From the superheater, steam delivery pipes (6) lead to the valves (7), which control the admission of steam to the cylinders, it along with the combustion gases from the tubes and flues is exhausted through the petticoat pipe (9) in the smokebox and up the stack (10).
So I guess we could call this “steam locomotive 101.” Thousands of locomotives met such fate as the railroads transitioned to the less labor-intensive diesel. A good many of those scrapped locos were only into the infancy of their working potential. Submitted by Gary O. Ostlund.
Credits: Pix & text in part verbatim from Classic Trains, Summer 2017, Photo by Paul Stephanus
Former Cadiz Railroad Alco S-2 sitting in the former Illinois Central Railroad, Princeton KY. yard around 1986. – Photos by Rick Bivins
Bill Thomas spotted this rail train in early June 2017, behind Baptist Health one morning on the way to physical therapy. It was on its way toward Providence on the Morganfield branch when he caught it at the intersection of 41A and Rose Creek Rd, Madisonville. The locomotive is in pushing mode with a flagman riding the modified box car. This might make an interesting model with the makeshift door cut in on the end. I believe there were only 2 pieces of rail on the train. Jim Pearson caught it later in Providence.
