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 Post subject: 48 years ago this week, Day 2
PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2019 11:12 am 

Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:23 am
Posts: 436
Location: Sheboygan County, Wisconsin
After getting back to Guatemala City on Saturday, I returned to my hotel in downtown, the Pan American. It had been recommended by friends and deservedly so. Great strong, bold black coffee with no bitter aftertaste was just one of the pluses there.

On Sunday morning after breakfast, I drove to Escuintla. This is West towards Mexico and 47 miles by rail on the Pacific Division. Things were pretty quiet on a Sunday morning, but I found that the roundhouse had several engines that were hot. Stored power outside included small Consolidation 39 along with the hulks of both ex Sumpter Valley articulateds.

Who should show up but the 4 railfans who had followed 174 on Saturday. There was Victor Hand, Mike Eagleson, Harold Edmonson and John Dziobko.

A Westbound passenger arrived with 2 new diesels on the head end. When they stopped at the station, a mechanic walked over from the roundhouse and picked up a Sellers injector that was laying on the steps of the lead diesel and took it back to the roundhouse.

While we were talking, the roundhouse foreman wandered by and Victor asked him if it would be possible to pose an engine on the turntable for photos. The guy smiled, gently swatted me on the arm and said "c'mon". I followed him into the house and he pointed to Porter built Mike 154 and we both climbed up. She still had a fair amount of pressure showing on the gauge. He had a fire in her in no time and started the compressor. Next time I turned around, he had disappeared. I heard a banging noise and looked back out the window. He was giving me a backup. The compressor was still thumping, but we had 90 lbs. in the main reservoir and 40 or so on the independent. What the hell, if he was game, so was I. He'd already pulled the chains from under the drivers. I checked the hydrostatic lubricator and it wasn't far off on the feeds so I left it alone for what we were doing.

This was the first time that I'd ever pulled on a front end throttle, and I discovered that you have a great deal of control of the steam. I got the engine outside and onto the table ok. Harold came over and I handed him my camera case and he was good enough to take some photos for me. It was a nice pleasant sunny morning and the day was sure starting out really well.

I thanked the foreman after the Porter was back in the house. After discussion, Harold decided to stay an extra couple of days while the other 3 returned to the States. We said our goodbyes. Then at Harold's suggestion, we drove the Volks back to Guatemala City and then continued all the way to Zacapa to follow 174 back to G.C. on Monday morning. Can't remember well, but it might have been dark when we got there. The bonus of the trip, even with all of the steam, was the Hotel Ferrocarril. It was an old two story wooden structure built in the railroads heyday. A room was $4.50 a night US and this included a 4 course dinner on old linen with silver and a hot breakfast the next morning. The management was proud of the bar and showed us in. Behind the bar on the wall were machine gun bullet holes from the 1950's revolution. The ceilings were quite tall, perhaps 14 ft. or so and had several slow moving fans. You half expected Bogart and Bacall to stroll into the room arm in arm.

After a good dinner, I wandered outside into the yard. Zacapa was a major terminal and had a huge water tank and a 6 stall open air roundhouse. Steam for the house came from a small steam plant in a building by the car shop. Consolidation 102 was the yard goat and seemed to always be on the move. I couldn't ignore that she had a one man crew, so jumped aboard. The guy running seemed really happy to have somebody fire so I stayed on it for maybe just over an hour and said goodnight. This was as close as I'd likely ever get to a deckless engine. Both engineer and fireman stood most of the time. You were alongside the boiler, not behind the backhead so you looked over the top of the boiler to signal each other.

Close to midnight. It was about this time that my good fortune left me. I had drank water from the cistern of 174 just like the crew did on Saturday and it finally reacted. I got pretty sick.


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 Post subject: Re: 48 years ago this week, Day 2
PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 5:19 pm 

Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 9:48 am
Posts: 1531
Location: Byers, Colorado
Tom,

In 1993, while I was making arrangements to remove the tender from one of the SVR articulateds from the scrap pile in Zacapa, the Roundhouse Foreman, Luis Chinchilla, took me out back to show me the row of bloody bullet holes in the concrete wall on the roundhouse. Evidently some of the railroaders weren't cooperative enough with the guerillas.

_________________
Ask not what your locomotive can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your locomotive,

Sammy King


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 Post subject: Re: 48 years ago this week, Day 2
PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 6:27 pm 

Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:23 am
Posts: 436
Location: Sheboygan County, Wisconsin
Politics were pretty open down there Sammy. I walked up on a young mechanic in the G.C. roundhouse while he was writing "Yankee Go Home" in chalk on a cylinder of one of the engines. His older partner nudged him with an elbow and when the kid saw me, he got embarrassed and attempted to cover it up with the sleeve of his shirt. I just walked on.

I did hear later that there were still a lot of hard feelings that went back to the 50's communist troubles.


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 Post subject: Re: 48 years ago this week, Day 2
PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:59 am 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:50 pm
Posts: 44
Location: Mill Valley, CA
I seem to remember the bar at the Hotel Ferrocarril had a few bullet holes.

JBWX


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