Flagg Coal #75 arrived at Rion Quarry early Saturday morning. It was shoved dead to Rockton by SW8 #2028. Mr. Gramling fired her up today (Monday) to make sure everything is good to go. She's currently sitting placidly on Track 2 in the Rockton Yard, ready for the training and media day tomorrow.

The festivities of the first steam locomotive to operate over the Rockton & Rion Ry. since 1969 will commence at around 9:00 tomorrow morning, culminating with an invitational media/VIP trip at 2:00 PM. I have my great-grandfather's coal scoop ready!

Do you have ice tongs? Barney likes BIG lumps, no scoop needed. :-) BTW You will have FUN!

Moving and getting married interrupted my ability to post to the internet this week, but didn't interfere with playing with the 75. I lucked out -- my new wife actually ORDERED me to go play train, and got pissed at me when I left the training day early last Tuesday because she was having problems with her ex.

Anyway, Flagg Coal 75 made a media run last Tuesday afternoon, then operated five trips on Saturday and four on Sunday. I fired two trips on Saturday and had a ball. I expect to be in the engine a lot more this coming weekend -- the prybar was exercised to get me out of the cab so that others could get a chance to fire. :) Old members and friends we hadn't seen in years came out of the woodwork to see the engine. About the only person we didn't see was "The South's Most Infamous Railfan," but I fully expect him to make an appearance this coming weekend.

For the training day and first weekend, we had the whistle from Hampton & Branchville #44 on the 75. It's a beautiful Crosby three-chime, just the right pitch. I'm hoping to put my small single-chamber whistle on the engine this coming weekend -- a hooter seems more appropriate for such a small engine.

We started out running one of our Fairmont A4 motor cars behind the engine. The A4 had a pushcar loaded with a pump and water tank for fire control. This worked well, but we also had some assistance from the Fairfield County volunteer fire department. The 75 couldn't quite push the whole train up the hill westbound from 321 to Greenbrier, so SW8 #2028 was used to pull the train west and was then uncoupled for the 75 to pull east solo. By the end of the day on Saturday, we had this operating procedure pretty well figured out.

Sunday morning, the 2028 went down to Rion Quarry to fetch our tank car, WRNX 14520, which holds just over 6000 gallons (6078 IIRC) -- already about half-full of water. The tanker was left in Greenbrier Siding and fetched by the 2028 on the first trip. I rigged up a hose Y fitting to put water down between the rails in hopes of wetting down the dry pine straw to reduce tte fires the steam engine was setting. John and Barney had also made some changes to the engine's ash pan overnight, thinking it was hot ash spilling out that was setting the fires. The operation was now much the same as Saturday, except the tanker was cut in between the SW8 and coaches on the westbound trip. On the eastbound trip, the diesel shoved the tanker with the drain valve open to distribute water on the track. The motor car followed this movement to deal with larger fires the splash of water from the tanker couldn't deal with.

This worked quite well until the next to last trip on Sunday. Behind Guardian (formerly Mack Trucks), the motor car crew noticed that their car was behaving strangely. They stopped to find out why, and discovered that the A4's southeast wheel flange had almost completely separated from the wheel. Afraid to move the car any farther, they got on the radio and hollared for help. The diesel and tanker reversed back to them to survey the situation. We ultimately decided to carefully limp the motor car to the Guardian switch and put it in the hole there, and just use the tank car only for fire control. A crew ventured out after the last trip to put a temporary replacement wheel on the motor car (robbed from an o/s motor car) to get it home.

Meantime, the last trip encountered more fires than the other three trips that day combined. Large chunks of rust in the tank car blocked up the fire hose, rendering it dry and useless. Fortunately we had a couple fire cylinders filled with water and the fires were all small.

Tickets for the trips were very nearly sold out. We deliberately held back 30 seats for walk-up customers, and managed to sell most of them. The only trip that wasn't nearly full was the last trip on Sunday.

Everybody is very impressed with the 75 and the Gramlings. There's already talk of repeating the event next year. Apparently the Gramlings are working on an 0-6-0; if they get that running it will be a much better engine for our rather demanding railroad than the 75.

great people and a nice locomotive
glad all went well

dr