.

[quote="Mark Jordan"][quote]There have been a number of stories over the years about men working in boilers, and somebody thought they were out and closed them in with the dome cover or something. No one died that I know of, thanks to a lot of hammering and yelling from inside the shell, but the experience had to be unnerving at best.[/quote]
One of my mentors told me the following in the late 1980's:

The late Mr. J.K. Byrne, of Shreveport LA worked for the KCS in Shreveport, and then later was "loaned" out to the Reader RR. He came to KY to assist with the initial operation of Kentucky Central #11 / ex-Reader #11. He told that one incident of a man who would sleep in a boiler during his lunch break in the Shreveport Roundhouse. One engine (with front throttle I'll assume) was almost ready to be outshopped, and the call came to immediately get it on the road due to other loco failure. The dome lid was put on and the boiler filled with hot water/steam from the roundhouse steam plant. After making it a few miles on the mainline, the engine eventually became lame, and limped back to the roundhouse light. Inspection revealed clothing fouling the throttle.

I dunno, but that's how J.K. told it.[/quote]

JK told me the same story. He also said that when the engine quit steaming they also observed hair in the sight glass. According to JK, it was a very unpopular locomotive with operating crew after that incident.

That story was also the basis for an old early 50s Railroad Magazine pulp fiction story, complete with the "evidence" in the water glass. It also involved a rivalry over a woman, if I recall. And some 1915-vintage Boilermaker's magazines also had simliar tales, usually occuring on some rinky-dink logging line in the Deep South (or Deepest Maine. Or a factory in Pennsyltucky). I think it's a tall tale, repeated with great seriousness to impressionable (young?) railroaders. Did Mr. Bryne have the least bit of a twinkle in his eye while relating the tale?

Howard P.
Skeptic Heights, NY

[quote="Howard P."]That story was also the basis for an old early 50s Railroad Magazine pulp fiction story, complete with the "evidence" in the water glass. It also involved a rivalry over a woman, if I recall. And some 1915-vintage Boilermaker's magazines also had simliar tales, usually occuring on some rinky-dink logging line in the Deep South (or Deepest Maine. Or a factory in Pennsyltucky). I think it's a tall tale, repeated with great seriousness to impressionable (young?) railroaders. Did Mr. Bryne have the least bit of a twinkle in his eye while relating the tale?

Howard P.
Skeptic Heights, NY[/quote]

As a matter of fact, he did. (-:

Railroad folk always had a penchant for practical jokes and mischief.
My Dad told me a story about a boilermaker at the Frisco's Lindenwood roundhouse who was in the firebox of one of the oilburning 4-8-4s, probably checking staybolts or something like that when someone threw a wad of burning waste in the firebox, slammed the firebox door and yelled "Watch the fire". I expect everyone but the boilermaker got a laugh out of it.

On the Mt. Washington Cog Rwy. back in the steam days, the shop crew would take a look around inside a boiler. Shop foreman Paul Philbrick always worried that he might get claustrophobic and not be able to get out. He worried that "they would have to send in the meat hook" in such a case. One method of resolving those problems was discussed as part of cog railroad lore. If someone got stuck in a tight place, their body would shrink if they got really mad and then they could get out. The answer, stand around and piss on the man and voila out he comes. Never actually saw it used though.

That's for sure. The late Richard Dick, fireman on the SD&AE in the '40's and '50's told me this story that happened to him when he was a new fireman. The train was going about 50 mph in the Imperial Valley, a major agricultural area. The old head engineer yelled over at him, "Hey, stick your head out the window!" Mr. Dick did as he was asked, just at the train hit a cow!

The old head wouldn't be too smug if the cow carcass knocked his fireman's head off!

Steve