All, a few pictures of the gleaming 630 taken by my brother Frank, who visited TVRM on Friday and was very happily surprised to find the engine under steam. Thanks, brother!

Wow! Congrats to all!!

Stephen

Excellent. A huge thank you to all those who put in the long hard hours to make this a reality. Beautiful job! Hope to see her in person someday.

I had the privilege of riding 630's first regular, revenue run since 1989 yesterday. She performed and sounded beautifully. It was also my first visit to the TVRM, and I will surely be back for the longer excursions. Huge thanks to the TVRM for restoring such an awesome locomotive!

630 looks very nice, clean and "like new".

Sorry if I am asking the well-known: Are those diesel mu cables on the tender? Is there a diesel control stand in the cab?

No, you can't control a diesel completely from the air connections alone. Those are just the MR, ACT, and AR lines that can be used to control the brakes of an accompanying locomotive or a water tender so that they respond like the lead locomotive. That helps with controlling the slack on the passenger trains. Additional locomotives would have to be controlled independently if needed for power.

Just standard MU air hoses for 26L brake - 4501 has an actuating line and main reservoir line as I recall. The air brake schedule is the relatively modern and standard 26L equipment in use on everything that's not got electro-pnuematic brake modules. Most GE's of the Dash 9 variety use a Knorr/NYAB CCL or WABCO EPIC arrangement. However, EMD has built a lot of SD70M's with the conventional 26 brake at the railroads' requests.

I'm not sure if they set up 630 with an MU throttle control like 765 has or not. But, if that was in the plans, I don't believe it hasn been done yet.

610 and 4501 both have 26L brake schedules, as well. Until a few years back when TVRM started using some borrowed/leased power for the Hiawassee and acquired the NC&StL 710, all of the active dismals had older design brakes than the steam engines - I was always amused by that fact. Now there is also the Southern GP30 (on lend-lease from SERM in Duluth) with 26L and I believe a former TVA Geep somewhere in the mix (perhaps used offsite at Enterprise South industrial park). Southern E-8 6914 is (being) equipped with a WABCO 30A-CDW desktop brake arrangement - it was the best fitting, least awkward arrangement to replace the 24RL while still using the original control stand. E-unit cabs are actually quite small, relatively speaking.

Mike
Look Ahead, Look South (to Chattanooga) for Green Lights to New Innovations

Slight amendment to 630's "first" revenue run -- she made an unscheduled appearance on the Missionary Ridge Locals on Wednesday, March 23, 2011, which, to my knowledge, is her first revenue appearance since 1989. (For those of you keeping score.)

--Bill

I remember reading that 4501, during it's excursion days on the Southern, had an MR line on the back of the tender. This was to allow a trailing diesel, even at idle, to provide MR in the event of a compressor failure on the steam locomotive. And of course, they had a one lung compressor stuck under the front steps on the fireman's side as well. Neither one was a bad idea, then or now.

I'm not sure there was a single lunger ever on the Famous. [EDIT: Indeed there was a single cylinder air pump hung under the fireman side valve ladders.] However, your assessment of the main reservoir line is mostly correct. In fact, if you tweek the governor a bit, you can let the dismals pump almost all of the air all of the time and let your cross compound have a respite from wear and tear. And, IF something did happen to the air pump, any dismal with a main reservoir line could be used to provide main reservoir pressure. The actuating line was added when she was upgraded to 26L brake during the 83-84 work in Birmingham, as I recall being told. This is also when her tired CofGA 2-10-2 tank was replaced with a welded version and the tender trucks were upgraded to WabcoPAC Barber roller bearing versions.

Mike
TVRM - "They're the finest friends a steam locomotive could want - indeed, without whom steam could not survive today." - DPM

Mike, the "single lunger" was definitely there in the mid-70's, I remember refilling it's lubricator. It was tucked up under the left running board steps.

Documented: http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31097

and http://tvrail.com/pages/standard/news.php

Also new photos from Sunday courtesy John Higginson (it was pouring rain on Saturday....630's first bath?):

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=358395 and

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=358408

and more from Robert Duncan (scroll down.....you'll also see my nephew Seth!):

http://thefireman.rrpicturearchives.net/archivethumbs.aspx?id=65835

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=2089321

Sure enough it does... learn something new everyday... Looks like it was gone by the mid 80's.

Indeed, we do learn something new every day, even about old friends. Now I'll have to look to find how it was actually mounted...

Suppose this might have come off when the side swipe incident occurred (not many are aware of this)?

Howard P. and I were involved with one of the LIRR G-5 projects, maybe 30 years ago. With permission, we salvaged a one lunger from a piece of equipment that at the time was headed for scrap. The G-5s had a huge open space under the cab, and we had plans of hiding it there; no one would have seen it unless they were looking for it.

I've often wondered what happened to that compressor, and if anyone has added an extra hidden compressor on an engine. Seems like a good idea; inspired by 4501, of course-

EDM
Reminiscing, NJ

Here are a few photos I took of the 630 on Saturday April 2 at TVRM. The 630 looked and sounded great.

Picture 012 by Southern722, on Flickr

Southern630Turntable1a by Southern722, on Flickr

PHTO0158 by Southern722, on Flickr

Steven Ashley