I'm reminded of a UK cartoon of an engine crew member assuming this position, minus water crane and with apparently unzipped trousers, and an irate passenger demanding of the station master on the platform, "And just HOW long is this 'taking on of water' supposed to take?"

From a few years ago, more grey, but the shape is still familiar.

Al G
RMNE/Naugatuck RR

A couple of photos of me. The first was taken when I was 20, about 13 years ago. I am in the cab of L&N 152 at the Kentucky Railway Museum.




This photo was taken last year, at the Illinois Railway Museum. I had just qualified a couple of weeks prior to run the Chicago Surface Lines/CTA one man streetcar 3142. Here, I'm channeling my inner Ralph Kramden.

RYPN-ers Chris Salmonson, Dave Sutter, and Matt Goodman at the Detroit Toledo & Milwaukee Roundhouse at the Henry Ford.

Since I used a couple of his photo's in this thread, I felt turnabout was fair play. So here is a photo I took of Tom Travis. We were inspecting a former Ann Arbor/DT&I streamlined cupola caboose which the owner had indicated he might consider donating to our museum. Unfortunately, the donation did not work out.

Great idea Jeff and it is good to see a face behind the posts :)

Here is my puss in front of one of my obsessions:



Photo taken June, 2012 at the Rochelle Railroad Days.

And one of my other obsessions:



For more of my machine tool addiction:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?s ... 957&type=3

Steve O'Connor

Taken at the controls of the Bel-Dels 142. This was my former territory when I was a Conrail engineer.
Keith

Here's one from about 20 years ago....the start of a day which became very interesting indeed.

In the cab of GCR 4960 back in '09.

Eric

And on one particular day, with Mr. Hadder in the seat shown above, I was on the other end of the train, if you could call it that. It's a story for another time.

Stephen Hussar got this shot of me practicing my contortionist's routine inside the smokebox of WW&F No. 9.

[img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8216/8444316279_f36ec1c0cb_b.jpg[mg]

Wayne Laepple

I might be able to get in; I'd certainly need help getting out again. This is why we need young skinny guys.

dave

I did need help getting out, Dave, and it was even worse when they put the smokebox front on and I had to wiggle through the door! Owning a Miata for five years was good practice, though.... I don't know how many more times I'll be able to get in and out of that smokebox, though.

At the small size of the photo, I'd have almost guessed that was Jack Anderson.

Is that the day we unveiled the #17 for the first time? I'm guessing it was.

They all blend together after 20 years, but I think this may have been the year we had 5 engines in steam. In any case, the #17 hadn't been announced as part of the event. We did a three engine side by side shot at Mineral, with the coaches left down by the shop switch. Then when that was finished, I radio'd "Harold, will you bring those coaches back up here..." and here comes #17 with the nice crisp bark, totally out of the blue.

In these days where you can barely replace a staybolt without somebody posting twitter updates of it to the internet, it's hard to imagine something like that being a secret, but we caught most everyone totally by surprise. Imagine being on a trip that already had 3 or 4 steam locomotives on it, and here comes another steam loco. Sorry, I can't recall if this was the year we did all 5 or not. I think it was, but I'm not certain.

Eric H., that's a really nice hat.

Holy Cow, Hal, I'm utterly flabbergasted you sent a pic of yourself at the throttle of (shudder) a steam locomotive!! You wanna get a reputation?? Your "Blad-Man" personna is certainly what we're all used to seeing.

I'm enjoying the photos, I hope everyone keeps them coming.

Howard P.