In all my time at TVRM, I only recall one time that we had issues with wet stacking. It was with one of the RDCs and due to the underslung motors, was dripping out onto the right of way and set several small fires. We shut the motor down causing the trouble down and limped home. I don't remember any problems with the GP-7s or RSD-1s. though I do recall that one of the RSD-1s would blow smoke rings when you started it.

Sounds like the folks at SERM did a good job managing the situation.

seems you would need one of them classic D&RGW steam engine spark arrestors that have a chute aiming to the ground. Riding behind a steam engine you have to have that classic cinder in the eye, no fan can't be without one.....

They should however put a cover over that caboose.

You can 'load bank' these engines. I'm pretty sure that is how big railroads test them. They put what amounts to a MASSIVE space heater (2, 3, 4 megawatts or however big is needed) and you can fully load the engine for as long as you like. Since the entire output of the prime mover only spins a generator, you can electrically load them up. I seem to think the newer locomotives can test load themselves with their dynamic brake grid, tho I don't know that they can load up fully that way. I seem to have also seen a load bank made of spare dynamic brake grids....

There is enough heat shed off of a load bank like that to turn something like a huge stadium into an oven.

Hi,

Minor correction - "classic D&RGW steam engine spark arrestors"

These were actually the Ridgeway spark arrester was designed and patented by the mechanical(?) department head of the narrow gauge Colorado & Southern.

Right state, right gauge, wrong railroad <GRIN>.

The Ridgways were eventually tried on the D&RGW narrow gauge mikes after it became the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

A few D&RGW locos rented by the C&S did wear Ridgeways. They were removed before being returned.

Doug vV

Those fire fotos are all of GE motors with bad turbos, very common on my former employer BN.

If we needed to load up an engine, we worked the independent against the throttle. Sometimes we did this to clean out the carbon, sometimes we did this to round off flat spots using abrasive shoes. It doesn't hurt the traction motors unless you deliberately flash them over. Matter of fact, where I come from, working the throttle against the brakes is called train handling....

We used an old dynamic brake assembly from a Greyback (that means F unit in Burlington Lines English) for a loadbox. Loadboxing a unit for sure cleaned the carbon out by the time she passed.

I want to thank the gentleman who called the spark arrestors on our narrow gauge power by their proper name. I asked the last engineman with Clear Creek Division seniority about that, and he told me that "A bear trap isa thing you catch bears with".

Amen! So much better for everyone onboard (and safer) when the engineer knows how to handle his train well. That includes using that handle called the "automatic brake" which new hire engineers seem to avoid like the plague.

Every major railroad (and probably most minor ones as well) have very strict prohibitions against stretch braking under most circumstances today, and outright bans on power braking (stretching beyond the forth notch). With the instant telemetry on most modern power these days, doing so shows up on the Road Foreman's laptop almost immediately, and someone will be there to meet the engineer when he gets to the end of his trip to "have a word" with him. It's the way I was trained. Consequently, I'm not very proficient in stretch braking either.

Well, OK.

Some of my friends still working tell me similar things, there is no teaching of train handling anymore, might as well shake up FRED every chance you get... but with an occupied waycar or passenger train, you better know how to do some "stretch braking". I'm reavealing my age, or maybe where I learned the biz, I've never heard it called "stretch braking". Anyway, if you use too much throttle against too much train air, it will show up as a break in two. The idea behind train handling is to either have your train stretched or bunched, so as to avoid slack action as much as possible.

SHOWS UP ON THE ROAD FOREMAN'S LAPTOP, EH ??? My friends still working tell me to be glad I'm retired, and I believe they're right. However, if you are doing your job the way you should, the event recorders, radio recordings, and taped conversations with the crew callers are your best friend. They have always cleared me in a single phone call, sure beats being the guest of honor at one of those investigations --- that's one thing they still have.

Working for Texas State RR and Ferrovias Guatemala, the way I was trained to handle a train was just fine, but we used old fashioned equipment. It would be destroyed if not handled carefully, and there would be numerous injuries to employees and passengers from slack action.

It's a different world today on the Big Nothing (Still Fits), I hear them switching with remote control power when I visit the old neighborhood, and it sounds like they're dropping artilary rounds out there in the middle of the yard !!!! Nobody in the tower or on the power to watch what's going on, and employees have been prohibited from getting on or off moving equipment for decades now. That's something else they used to insist on us knowing....

If any of you young fellas out there want a secure future in railroading, my advice (which nobody seems to want) is to become a carman, they are always going to have plenty of freight cars to repair !!!

"Stretch braking" is an official CSX term, as is "power braking" (defined as working against air in the fifth notch or higher), which is totally verboten. The goal is still to keep the slack either bunched or stretched, just that they pretty much want engineers to do it with the throttle and dynamic brakes, only using the automatic to bring the train to a final stop and hold it. You can do that all day with a freight train with either extended range or high-capacity AC dynamics (which, if you've never experienced them, are totally awesome, especially on a GE AC6000), but yeah, it takes different skills to run an Office Car Special or something like the Ringling Bros. train. I would be totally lost with a modern passenger "blended braking" system (used by just about every commuter and Amtrak operation - except the Auto Train, which uses a standard 26L freight set-up). CSX pretty much has to call on older heads to do those runs - especially an OCS. The Ringling and Straits Shows trains get pot luck as to the skill of the engineer. I got a little practice with older guys and stretch-braking as an engineer trainee and engineer cut-back to conductor, but not nearly enough to give me a real degree of confidence doing it on a regular basis. The main engineer I trained with was a product of the new way of operating, and prided himself on being able to run an entire trip without having to touch the automatic, and really couldn't teach me anything about stretch-braking a train. Not his fault as all. He was well thought of by supervision.

Back in the early 1980's, when you could still run friction bearing cars on the mainline, some of Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad's passenger stock was used on mainline excursions in Canada from Vancouver to places like Penticton, BC (as far as I know it last public passenger run on the line before it was torn up) and Kelowna. BC.

CP and CN both were careful to assign veteran crews to the job. I think one conductor made one of our trips his last run before retirement. They were all great, and did a wonderful job of handling the train through the mountainous terrain.

One engineer was especially smooth, gliding through the curves and up and down hills without so much as ripple in the champagne glasses back in first class, while also quickly getting back up to speed when possible. All was well and good until we started smelling smoke. Soon we also started seeing smoke, and lots of it. You may have seen the clouds of blue smoke pouring off of long freights on a steep downgrade. Well, that's what we had. The wheels were toasty warm, and all the journal oil that had built up on them over time was burning off. It was smelly in the open windowed coaches (those were the days), and some of the passengers were rather concerned about smoke coming off the underside of the train as we traveled through the mountains, often on the side of a steep cliff high above the river.

The smoke got so bad that we had to stop and inspect the train. After a bit of cooling our heels as well as our wheels, progress resumed at a somewhat more sedate speed until things cleared up. Eventually the oil burned off and/or the hogger stopped stretch braking and the problem resolved itself.

yeh, I'm expressing an idea, I knew it came from somewhere,



thats a model version, I recall an image of some SW7 somewhere with an arrestor covering both exhaust ports.



thats whats I'm a talkin abouts

Grain elevators tend to be picky about sparks, it's that whole "grain dust can explode like a bomb" thing that makes them nervous.

This is the most extreme spark arrestor system I've ever seen, it was used in Tacoma, WA.

Those were the days Bob. Somewhere in my psyche the trains have impeccably clean domes and trouble-free EMDs upfront!

Something we may never see again? Maybe. I have faith in the next gen.

Rob

I can think of at least one railroad that uses stretch braking almost daily with modern freight cars (not quite modern power though, and no dynamics) and I have yet to hear of a pulled drawbar or any thing of the sort.

Getting into back to preservation, at least in the time I have worked on the Milwaukee's dynamometer car, I can tell if the engineer is a freight engineer or IRM trained engineer: the freight guys use dynamics, while those trained by IRM use the train brakes. Big difference in the ride quality in the train, and the forces exerted on the equipment.

Somewhat related to the topic at hand (unrelated to the accident at hand but directly related to the 1026), this discussion brought back a memory I have of the 1026 when it arrived at TVRM. It's not a good one either and one that SERM's members may be unaware of. It relates to the death of one of TVRM's members on the property, though the death was due to natural causes.

I had been working at the shop and had some business to attend to at the other end of the line. As I was walking out to my truck, I spotted Doc sitting on the running board of the 1026 (which was parked on Track 8), enjoying the good weather. I stopped and chatted with him for a few minutes, then continued on my way. I returned to the shop about an hour later and was immediately called into the office by the shop foreman. He informed me that shortly after I had left, Doc was found unresponsive either on the locomotive or on the ground right beside it by one of the shop employees. Two of our employees were volunteer firefighters trained as EMTs and they had begun treating Doc while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. By the time I got back, the doctors at the hospital had already pronounced him dead on arrival. From what we could construct, I was probably the last person to speak to Doc before he passed. What we concluded at the time (and the doctors confirmed) was that while Doc was sitting on the 1026, he experienced a massive heart attack that was fatal-he was probably dead before he hit the ground.