"After my assist on that pull, a 4-6-6-4 Challenger, was called away to help a breakdown, I recoupled to that load and hoped that I could get her moving again. Releasing the train brakes, I rolled back a little to put as much slack in the train as I could, started pouring out sand, put the reverser to the front 100% and began quickly opening up the regulator. First 10%, then 20%... 30... 50... 70... at 80% and only a few seconds later I let go of the throttle and listened to the front wheel truck spinning out on the wet rail. Initially, I raced up to about 2 and half miles per hour, but as the slack pulled out of the train and the full weight came on my engine, that jump off the starting line was slowing fast. Back down to 1mph. The sander is still wide open. The wheels on the truck underneath my cab are gripping but there is constant spin coming from the front truck... but I am moving forward. Eyes glued to the speedometer, I see the trend start that I had hoped for.... 1.2 mph. Then 1.3. A few seconds later the second "wave" of my initial yank on those 100 cars hit me in the back and pushed us quickly up to 1.6mph. This might just work.
At 2mph, I let off the sander and will all 16 wheels spinning, by engine speed dropped like a rocket to 1.5 mph when I hit the sander and yanked that train again, shooting us up to 2.3mph. Hold onto that sander and hope I don't run out. 2.5... 3mph. I let off the sander again, dropping the speed and then when I pour on the sand again we got up to 3.3. I pushed the regulator wide open... 100% throttle. Then just budged the reverser back to 97%. A surge... 3.7 mph... 4! I let off the sander again, let the speed drop to 3.5 and then gave her sand again... she lurched up to 4.5 mph. I think I'm gonna make it.
There must have been an unlimited supply of sand in that beast because I poured it on constantly for over 1/2 mile! At 5 mph, I nudged the reverser back to 95%. At 10 mph, I moved it to 92%. At 18 mph I finally could let go of the sander. This was only a 0.1% grade but that was the hardest start of my life! Now I started praying I could get my power balanced as I was using WAY more steam than I had been making for over 10 minutes now. I started backing down the reverser and occasionally dropping the throttle and then pushing it back to 100% to set up that wave of slack in my consist. Each time the wave would hit (twice usually, sometimes three times) I would gain speed. At 22 mph and what seemed like an hour later, I was finally leaving the east end of Alderson.
Then I saw our speed start dropping. I looked at the steam box pressure guage and it was dropping. My steam usage was going up. Is there....... oh crap... yep, we're on a grade. Only 0.4% but I have no speed, no steam and I don't know how far to pull. So I started fine tuning my reverser. The best I could hope for was to set up a slow grinding pace that would get me to the next plateau. The reverser was all the way down to 30% before my steam pressure stopped plummeting and leveled off. Hey... wheel spin! At least I still have some power left. I opened up the sanding again and checked the steam pressure. It was starting to build, ever so slowly. Speed still dropping... down to 15mph. How long is this hill, I wonder? At 12 mph, I am preparing myself to deal with being stalled out here all day and low and behold, my speed stopped dropping. Power leveled off with my load at 12.2 mph. So we crawled along for the next 5 miles. I read the locomotive manual. Again.
Eventually, I made it to the quarries at Fort Spring where the grade leveled back to an "easy" 0.1%. Having built up some steam, I began working the reverser and regulator again to try and gain speed. Maybe, just maybe, I will make it to Ronceverte now where there is a diesel pusher in the yard that can help. Even as big as this beast is, it is obviously not going to pull this load up a 10 mile grade of 0.6%. I need a helper on the back. Besides, I can't keep yanking this train like this or something is going to break..................................."
To see how the story turns out, give it a try yourself on the C&O Alleghany - coming Friday, January 14! I've given you the tips on HOW to do it... but do you have the patience?
