Some groups carry a tool car.

What would you keep in it?

Would you consider it more necessary for steam?

Do you consider the benefits of a toolcar worth the foregone ticket revenue?

It's not called a tool car for nothing.
I am assuming you are talking about a mainline excursion where you may be gone for several days and putting on well over a thousand miles.
You carry your usual wrenches, sockets, hammers,sledges, pipe fitting tools, flaring tools. grinders and specialty tools you'll need to fix those pesky breakdowns , leaks and non functioning apparati that only occur when you're under steam and on the road.
You carry spares of everthing... brake shoes, brake hoses, brake hose rubber washers, brake valves of all kinds, pipe tubing and associated fittings of the sizes your equipment uses. Anything you need to keep your equipment from being set out due to a nonfunctioning piece of equipment.
Everthing you need to keep your 15 air conditioners heating sysytems, all the toilet systems etc, operating.
Everthing you need in case, God forbid, you put a wheel on the ground, Blocking, more blocking, portapower, steel shims wedges plates, etc. and anything else that will get you back on the rail. Everything you need to service your locomotive and train, including your water treatment, hoses for watering the tender and enough hose to water all the cars. All your lubricants, valve oil, soft grease, hard grease, and the requisite grease guns, lights and hundred of feet of cords, plenty of air hoses, torches, welders, and all the supplies needed to operate them. Don't forget your extra whistle cable, and light bulbs for headlights, classlights, every kind of 34 volt bulb in your cab, and whatever the equipment you're pulling uses. Lots and Lots of rags. Include some ladders, and chains.

Besides all this you need space for your crews who use all this stuff to ride, plus supplies for them to eat and a place to sleep.
If you're well prepared, you hopefully won't need 95% of this stuff, but we can't afford to be unprepared for the unforseen.

This is not an exhaustive list, just the things that come to mind that are supplied in our tool car.

The tool car doen't replace ticket revenue. It adds about 85' to the train length, and helps to assure that you won't have to refund any of that ticket revenue due to inability to operate the trip.

My dad, a lifelong carreer railroader said it best. He used to tell me..." always remember to pack a lunch for Murphy,otherwise he'll eat yours!!".

The tool car as Ed describes above is there to make sure we've got on board everything Murphy might want for lunch....so he won't have to eat ours!!

Ross Rowland

Murphy accompanies every steam trip and isn't covered by the hours of service law. Sometimes the SOB rides on your shoulder like Long John's parrot.
That's why you carry everything you own in the tool car (s).

Murphy lives in the roundhouse,the TM's office, the fuel jobber who was supposed to have your fuel at 6AM but doesn't show up till 15 minutes before departure..the pilot that was called hasn't been over the territory in 18 months so they have to call ANOTHER pilot who is qualified...Murphy stalks the railroad like a cougar chasing a rabbit..especially when a steam locomotive is runing around....I second and third co614 and Frisco1522..carry everything...and that might not still be enough..

Ya'll forgot to mention the Acme Instant Inspection Pit and the Inflatable Instant Roundhouse Stall. And, no, the Stall is not required to use Inspection Pit.

Mike

AND what about the portable wye and/or turntable ?? :P

One thing that makes the future a bit cloudy for tool cars is the trend toward Amtrak steam trips - in the early days (2001/2002) Amtrak allowed the tool cars to be exempt from the entire PC1/PC2 requirements. Recently, it appears that hasn't been the case. The 4449 group jumped through hoops to get a tool car ready for their trips last year but didn't get it ready in time, and I notice that the recent 3751 trips didn't have one. And for their recent trips the 1225 group has left theirs home as well. Probably a trend - groups don't want to spend the big $$$ to maintain another car, especially if it needs to meet PC1/PC2 requirements.

Chris.

You could consolidate what you could into a support truck/van or so, but the big downfall is needing a tool or pipe fitting several miles from the closest access road. Today it isn't uncommon for freight conductors to drive ahead of the train with a company vehicle to unlock gates and inspect equipment sitting on storage tracks while waiting for the train to show up 20 minutes later so long as they can easily access their customers by road.

A tool car is really only needed when you are going to be far from home for an extended period of time. The 1225 and 3751 were trips that were close to home so, there really isn't a need for a tool car.

For many many years 4501 never ran with a tool car. Even when they brought her back in 91 she didn't run with one that much.

TVRM has no need for a tool car as the most of the consumables that might be needed are carried in the Commissary Car. End lockers on that car carry nothing but supplies.

yep, thats what the end of steam did otherwise you have even minor service shops about every water stop. If you can't use your tool car perhaps you may design a lot of equipment portable to use like in an Amtrak baggage car to heave into it for the trip, removed at the end.

Didn`t the larger water canteens that NS used have space for tools and supplies in the area where the coal bunker was? I seem to remember there being a small roll up door or something.

Later
Michael