Surely you jest. In forty-seven years of hand-firing, the number one mistake firemen make is overfiring. The successful firing of a steam locomotive involves "reading" the fire, and then the tactical placing of each scoop. The two women who fired for me had no difficulty maintaining steam. (And in case anyone gives me the tired trope about SRC being limited to three and one-half "Amish" miles, my experience includes hand-firing on SRC's main line trips at sustained speeds over 50 mph ...) It is not a matter of brute strength but of finesse.

Hand firing involves both brute strength, finesse and lots of other skills. Brute strength and fitness are definitely part of it.

Try hand firing 4501 or 630 pulling a decent train at track speed. The shoveling is heavy and constant.

I stand by my comments. I didn't say one doesn't get winded or that it isn't constant.

Everyone has ignored the fact that in the 1990's The C&TS had a lady crewman - Marty Fischer. She started in the concession car, moved to brakeman, became a fireman and got promoted to engineer.

Marty could out-fire most of the guys on the 4% east out Chama. She did a great job. I had a big hand in her training as an engineer and she became a very accomplished runner, handling trains on the strair-step profile on the east end of the RR as well as the 4% drop into Chama.

She and her husband Russ Fischer later left Chama to take positions with the newly-founded Grand Canyon RR where she worked the shop as well as working as engineer and fireman.

She was a great railroader.

By Past tense, I take it they are no longer around?

.

Both of these ladies fired these locomotives when they were coal as well as No. 481 which still is coal. No trouble for them at all….

Marty was killed in a car accident in 2014. I am very much still around and currently employed by the Durango & Silverton as a machinist and engineer. I was the engineer on the road engine the day the girls made their first run together on the helper and have the privilege of working with both of them on a regular basis.

Surely there were women train crews during WW-II, they did everything else, welders, machinists, truck drivers, etc.

One of our RyPNers posted here about his mom being a switchman during WWII on the Proctor ore docks of the DM&IR during the winter. Captain Guts job even for a dude, I'd say.

In 2006 I observed a coed track gang relaying, leveling, and lining track panels with concrete ties at the Zhalainuoer open cast mine in China, right on the Siberian border. The women were doing their share.

Of course C&NW Station Agent/Telegrapher KATE SHELLY neutered the "women don't have what it takes" argument long, long ago.

As for the argument that females don't have the muscles to fire a steam engine with a coal scoop, I ask if you fellas have ever been involved with a ballerina, a stripper who does pole tricks, or a lady who wears high heels a lot of the time.... (if you answered no, you haven't lived.)

Last Monday Nevada Northern Railway Museum Superintendent Angela Steven fired Nevada Northern Ry #81 for me and did an outstanding job, and coached a student fireman at the same time.

Fore the unknowing, NN 81 burns coal.

The East Troy Railroad Museum in East Troy Wisconsin has a young lady Haylee Wilcox-Robinson who qualified to operate all equipment from streetcars to M.U. interurban trains with train air braking systems. Very capable and a fast learner

A few comments -

1st - While this is good to see it's hardly earth shattering. I've been qualified as an engineer for almost twenty years and I have a teenager who hasn't let her pursuit of young men interfere with her stated intent to become steam qualified. I think it may have attracted one or two. I also had a grandmother who could repair a tractor when she was in high school and had qualified as a pilot-in-command of a B-25.

2nd - What is gratifying here is the number of responses indicating that this really wasn't that unexpected or unusual.

3rd - In response to Sammy, he's absolutely right about those damned heels and any woman who has taken care of a couple of infants in succession has muscles in her back which would rival a stevedore. As for the comment about strippers and pole dancers et c. (Sorry Uncle Robin I'm going to rat you guys out) When my uncle was in high school he was seeing a girl who had been taking dance lessons all her life and was often in the troupe in local productions (Nutcracker, Music Man). He was sufficiently enamored to learn a few of the basic moves and there were apparently many school day afternoons when he was 'helping her practice'. Even after a career in the Marines he maintains that those were some of the toughest workouts of his life.

This is a great achievement personally for the ladies involved and I congratulate them wholeheartedly. I look forward to a day when this is no longer headline news and people won't bat an eyelash when they see a woman in the cab of a steam locomotive.....or in the cockpit of a 5th generation fighter aircraft.
Here ya go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDMHF9R

When I was a student fireman on SP 786, I had Marty as an engineer on a trip, and she was a consumate pro at running the engine.

Sammy, we could talk about the "dancing woman" thing....