Steam Locomotives....they live, they breathe...they listen!

[GLRX12]

So, I'm more just posting this as a funny story for everyone on how my Saturday went.

But first, an old saying. Steam machinery is the only machine ever built by man that is truly alive. The moan and groan, they breath and eat and drink. They also have personalities, some are kind and sweet, some just want to make your life miserable. I also learned on Saturday....they listen to what you say!

So this story starts on Friday, Shay 9's 2nd revenue day of the year. Due to mechanical trouble, we didn't get the run the engine until the previous monday, and then spent most of the week working on it finishing the last few things. So Friday rolls around and all of us are excited, not because steam is new to any of us, but this will mark the first all steam weekend at the Loop this year! After all the hours we had put into the old girl, we were happy to see her out and about again.

9 just turned 90 years old in April, Lima s/n 3199, April of 1923. A beast of a locomotive at 81 tons, the 2nd largest narrow gauge Shay ever built. though listed at 36,000 pounds of tractive effort, its actually somewhere closer to 41,000 pounds due to undersized wheels, making her the most powerful narrow gauge shay ever built (WSLCO 10 is technically larger, due to a different tender). Friday went great! My coworker and myself split the day in half, he took 2 trips down and back up, I took 2. both of us got a chance to fire and run, and get used to the old girl again!

9 has been a bit of a problem child since we got her. She was leased to us from Iowa, where she had spent the previous 40 years, as an operational locomotive. After taking the tubes out for the Form 4 of the boiler, we discovered the boiler had bad belly pitting. So from February of 2011 until July of 2012, the engine was in parts.

The engine ran most of last year just fine, with a leaky throttle (we tried to fix it every boiler wash last year), a rotten mudring, several broken staybolts, and just in general a bad attitude towards people, as we say a the loop....she demands blood....literally.

Last winter all those problems were addressed, the mudring was repaired, staybolts were replaced, and over the course of a month, the throttle was redesigned and rebuilt. On Friday, she ran great, fired great, steamed liked a champ. She wanted to fly up the hill...which is a problem because around 7 MPH she starts bouncing up and down because of the way the crankshaft is balanced.

So Saturday rolls around, 10 pounds of steam in the morning, enough to light off. We were ready to roll by about 9:10 in the morning, almost an hour before departure, got water, blew down the boiler, coupled in and waited. I had a student fireman with me for the first 3 trips, who had never fired the shay, but had fired our little 12 last year, so I coached him. Not myself, my student, or the superintendent who was running could help but compliment how great the engine was doing, how well she steamed, how well she ran, how well she was firing.

So 4th trip of the day rolls around, I trade off with my Superintendent because he wanted to fire for a few trips, and I wanted a few trips in the right hand seat. Downhill trip was as smooth as a shay gets...that is to say, bouncy. We get down to Devils Gate, run around the train, build some water, back under the bridge, and head up the hill. I managed to start under the bridge without slipping for a change (believe it or not, its fairly easy to slip a shay). The whole way up the hill I had to keep backing off, seems like she just wanted to fly...in some cases literally. As we crossed the high bridge I notices a guy with a tripod on the back of the first car, filming away. Grin from ear to ear.

So after about 30 minutes or so, we reached Silver Plume yard limits, as we crested the hill and leveled out, we still had 1/3 of a glass of water (or 3/4 of a glass on the grade of 3-4%), 200 pounds of pressure, everything was perfect. I started to notch down as we pulled in, and the last thing I remember was my Superintendent telling me which pile of rocks I was aiming for. I nodded that I understood, talking over the roar of a shay gets pointless after a while, then all of a sudden, and forgive the poor impersonation of the sounds, I hear "Tink.....BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG". At that exact second, I was nothing forward on the Johnson bar, and I had just released the squeeze, and I felt the bar rattling badly. You could hear in the timing that one cylinder was fighting all the other ones.

Within about a second, I reached over, dumped the automatic into emergency, shut the throttle, opened the cylinder cocks, and set up the independent. I look over at Phil who has this surprised expression on his face before stating "Well, something broke"

After a second or two, we got the fire calmed down, I hopped out of the cab knowing exactly what happened because I had heard this sound before....and sure enough, an eccentric strap had lost its pin and beat itself against the frame of the locomotive....oddly enough, it was the same strap that broke last year when I was conductor and we got stuck at the bottom of the hill.

We knew we were dead, and it could not have happened in a worse spot. We were halfway through the lead from the diagonal track leading to the oil tower and the shop, and the main leading to the station, meaning there was no locomotive in a position to move use, we had to find a way to turn a 3 cylinder shay....into a 2 cylinder shay.

Needless to say...It took us about 45 minutes, plus unloading all passengers, and rocking the locomotive back and forth on the bar of the 2 good cylinders before we finally managed to get it to roll. One cylinder was fighting on half its stroke, which made it nearly impossible to move, we tried manually setting the bad valve but no luck. After we got moved past the switch, good old 1203 brought the dead carcass of the 9...once again, into the shop lead.

So steam has its lure, that fascinates all of use, the moving parts, the signs of life. But boy, it was listening to every word we said. It heard all the praise and thought the whole time "Oh I will show you"

The simple reason why is.....that engine is evil. pure and simple.

[mrennie]

Fascinating story ... I'd put up with all that just to be able to ride in the cab

[1225fan5358]

Dang. And I thought 7014 gave US some trouble!

[Shortliner]

Heh, that was a great read! :) You should post some pictures of the Shay sometimes.

[FourEightFour]

Just saying:

Heh, that was a great read! :) You should post some pictures of the Shay sometimes.

Here is a photo of her taken by the company photographer.

[bpetit]

Bad to the bone xD. Nice story thanks for telling.

[BNSFdude]

NP 105 is the bastard child here at the MTM. Every weekend there's literally something different wrong with it.

[bpetit]

NP 105 is the bastard child here at the MTM. Every weekend there's literally something different wrong with it.

Would you care to write about it? :P

[BNSFdude]

First day of the season we were trying to switch with it, and it wouldn't load above run 1. So switching was going slow.
We shut it down, and fixed the problem (bad breaker apparently), and started it back up. All was going well, and we were back in business again.

Later in the day after the museum closed to the public, switching doubled, and so we really needed her to be working. Because it's 105, it died on us again. This time though, we couldn't get it to start back up. Turns out someone forgot to place the Aux. Gen. fuse back in, and it depleted the battery. Now we have to sit and wait for it to charge back up on the charger to start it, and the only locomotive available to switch with was our 45 Tonner that only has one engine operable.

Safe to say General Ben didn't like us that day for having to switch heavy cars and locomotives with him, but he did it. Once we got 105 back up, Ben got a well deserved nap.

[GLRX12]

I miss our little 12, she was a sweetheart. Everything I learned about steam...Maintenance, Firing, Running, I learned on 12.

As long as you treated her nice, she would reward you, and even when you got a little rough with her, she would still be willing to play the game. She never had trouble with the throttle not sealing (though it was a POS ball valve with little motion), she never had bad staybolts, she had tube leaks a few times, but nothing major after it was repaired. You could set your fire after high bridge, trim back your injector, and never lose a pound of steam and go for a ride up the hill, make it to the top with plenty of water and plenty of steam! She was also the engine you could run 7 days a week all year long (minus 30 day inspection rotations) and she would rarely throw a fit. Once the MacGyvered throttle linkage worked lose, but thats about it!

She had a wobble going backwards, because the trailing truck was bent and the equalization system was goofy. The trailing truck always leaned to the engineers side, we could never get the thing to sit straight no matter what we did.

I old had trouble firing once with her, and that was because a brick fell in front of the burner one morning, and it was not till the next morning that we figured out what had happened.

Towards the end of her time at the loop, she developed a habit of NOT applying her independent brake...ever. Was funny the first few times uncoupling from Devils Gate and the engine rolled away...you try to stop, and she keeps going. Only way to stop was to throw he in forward, pull the throttle, and wait for the brakes to finally set up.

But we still loved her. The 9 went back down again a few weeks after we got it running in July of 2012. So we literally ran 12 until THE LAST possible day before it had to be loaded for its trip to Iowa, and 9 was steamed up for the day the 12 had to be loaded. She was still hot when she went on the truck, though she had been drained of all water and oil.

That engine, though only 42 tons, was the best engine the Loop has had since IRCA 40 was around. She still runs around in Iowa, with a real spool throttle, and still in Georgetown Loop lettering! She is and always will be our little girl! With the 9 acting up again this week...we miss her greatly!

[slick204]

Where in Iowa is she? I need a road trip!

[FourEightFour]

Where in Iowa is she? I need a road trip!

Midwest Central in Mount Pleasant.

[mrennie]

Can you post a photo of 12? I'm curious.

[1225fan5358]

Is this right?

[FourEightFour]

Is this right?

Yep

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G4-JA_13WA