Any Steam RR Fans Here?

[SDT]

I'm a big fan of reciprocating steam as well as a big RR fan.

The video below shows Norfolk & Western 611, one of the very last steam locomotives built in the United States, doing what it was designed to do.

The Norfolk & Western J class locomotives and her contempory Y class freight locomotives held off the diesels for the best part of a decade on the Norfolk & Western.

For those of you who are not RR fans, 611 had much more power but applying much more would have caused her to spin out on the wet rails.

Turn up the volume.

SDT

 

[SidecarFlip]

Think I've watched every You Tube steam video made (but not that one).. My favorite are the Big Boy vids. Always wanted to buy and restore a rail speeder but I'm too old now, but I may build a rail bike if I live long enough. Rails will take you places you'll never see from the highway.

nice.

As my shop doorbell, I have a Kahlenberg Triple Chime steam whistle that you can blow on compressed air and wake the entire neighborhood up with. Takes around 20 CFM at 175 psi to make it sing.

 

[SDT]

Think I've watched every You Tube steam video made (but not that one).. My favorite are the Big Boy vids. Always wanted to buy and restore a rail speeder but I'm too old now, but I may build a rail bike if I live long enough. Rails will take you places you'll never see from the highway.

nice.

As my shop doorbell, I have a Kahlenberg Triple Chime steam whistle that you can blow on compressed air and wake the entire neighborhood up with. Takes around 20 CFM at 175 psi to make it sing.

How about this one?

This is torque, folks. Raw torque.

FWIW: The N & W Y6B locomotives could out pull a Big Boy and do it with less coal.

RR videos never got any better. I can still smell the coal smoke.

SDT

 

[ehenry]

I'm not a RR enthusiast but my grandfather was an engineer with Illinois Central RR. I have a photo him bringing the Panama Limited through Jackson, MS leaning out of the locomotive cab waving. He and Casey Jones were friends.

 

[SDT]

I'm not a RR enthusiast but my grandfather was an engineer with Illinois Central RR. I have a photo him bringing the Panama Limited through Jackson, MS leaning out of the locomotive cab waving. He and Casey Jones were friends.

Enjoy.

SDT

 

[skeets]

Man that brings back memories of a small boy. The Montour RR use to haul coal from the mines and ran up through the valley below my folks place. You could hear the loco huffin and puffin all along that grade. And on a clear night you could hear the old motor on the gas well , chug chug chug. It is a shame kids today will never know those sounds,, Thanks SDT for bringing up some old memories

 

[hope to float]

Stupid question time: If they were sending 3 locos, why didn't they put 60 wagons on each train?

 

[ehenry]

One of the sounds I remember most from when I was young is the Federal Cotton Compress it was located down by the tracts. Back when cotton was king the compress ran 24x7 pressing cotton bales until the end of the cotton harvest. The compress was steam operated and every time the bales were pressed the steam would shoot out of the roof of the building. If you were close it was deafening. The compress ceased operation in the late 80s. When my son, now 35, learned to talk and heard the compress he told me there was a fire breathing dragon in the woods behind the house. I loaded him up and took him to see the compress and how it worked.

 

[SDT]

Stupid question time: If they were sending 3 locos, why didn't they put 60 wagons on each train?

Regulations and/or union work rules at the time required that every freight train have a caboose with a conductor and brakeman. Breaking the train into three smaller trains would have required two more cabooses and four more men.

The train was powered by the two front locomotives everywhere but on the hill when the helper was added to the rear.

Upon toping the hill, the helper was cut away and returned back to the bottom of the hill to await the next train.

There was a smaller 4-8-2 steam helper stationed less than 1/2 mile from the house where I lived as a child. It helped the freights, both steam and diesel powered, up the 12+ mile hill out of the Ohio River valley on the (then) B & O. The road locomotives could pull the trains everywhere on the line but the hill.

The helper was taken off in 1957 after the B & O had acquired enough new diesel units to handle the traffic. I have wonderful memories from childhood of the sights, sounds and smell of steam power on the B & O.

SDT

 

[lugbolt]

grew up around the 8444, big boys, and several others (those ones I remember well). Dad retired from UP, grandpa retired from UP in 1974 (died a few months after). Being that dad was a railroader, on weekends when there was no racing whether it be indoor or out, we were riding the train across the state or to wherever. Most of the time steam, but in the early 1980's steam was getting harder and harder to find for passenger trains. Dad knew of a few that specialized (big boys and 8444 both) and that's what we did, rode to South Dakota several times, Minnesota, Colorado, etc.

I work just off the tracks and every once in a while they'll have a steam loco come through and stop for pictures, etc. Really cool stuff. Always interesting to watch the morons standing RIGHT next to them when they blow down. It's not really that hot but it is warm and certainly gets your attention.

Steam power is really amazing, the amount of power that steam can make is mind boggling when you consider that all it really is, is water. There are a lot of big cargo and even Navy vessels that STILL run on steam. And power plants. The differences are in what is used to heat the water. Smaller nuke fueled steamers use as little as 8 lb of uranium fuel, which lasts for sometimes years. What's the significance? Fuel. Now a carrier can carry more fuel for the aircraft. My uncle (deceased) was a navy vet and worked in/around the reactor parts as well as some of the turbine parts. Interesting stuff.

 

[mattwithcats]

In 1973, Cass Scenic Railroad, Cass West Virginia, had a major fire in the Locomotive Shop.
Caught in the blaze was Climax #9, most of the wood cab was destroyed.
Other Locomotives needed work, so the engine was pushed to the deadline.
In 2000, it entered the Locomotive shop again, emerging 18 years later,

I last saw this engine in 1974-75, blackened and burned, sitting on the deadline.

 

[mattwithcats]

Cass Railroad Shay #5 was delivered to the Mower Lumber Company in 1905.
Mower Lumber Company became Cass Scenic Railroad in the late 1960's
Still on the same rails and property after 115 years...

 

[mattwithcats]

You want some steam power?

 

[mattwithcats]

Caroline Kennedy christens the USS John F Kennedy, CVN 79...
December 10, 2019

She previously christened the USS John F Kennedy, CVN 67, 52 years age...
May 27, 1967

 

[Deadscroll]

Oh no, it's it again! I came across a topic similar to this 10 minutes ago. Why should everything be destroyed? I hate when somewhere an accident happens, and the worst is if someone dies because of it. Today I use quality companies in my life. Safety is the principal thing. If there's no safety, it could be chaos. I'm proud that I found a fantastic ticketing company at https://www.dbauskunft.com/de/ . I got the decision to use only this company due to covid and high prices. Yeah, covid and high prices aren't good friends.

 

[skeets]

OK I just couldnt resist

 

[johnjk]

Check out Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugar Creek Ohio. Built by Jerry Jacobson. It’s a working roundhouse with several ongoing restorations and almost two dozen steam locomotives. Can’t forget Ft Wayne’ Nickle Plate Berkshire. She has been running the rails around here for decades. If lucky I get a ride behind her a couple times a year. I’d love to get my hands on a steam whistle one of these days.

 

[ctfjr]

If you steam guys are ever in CT there is a great little museum in Kent (western part of state):
Kent Museum
They have a fall festival every year that I used to take our kids to. I have gone to it several times myself to shoot the various displays:

 

[bcp]

Stupid question time: If they were sending 3 locos, why didn't they put 60 wagons on each train?

Maybe because they would have to pay for three full train crews instead of just two additional engine crews.

Bruce