The J&L Narrow Gauge Railroad is entering 2021 in a good position. We have a few projects in store for this year and actually have some money in the bank to help get the work done.

J&L 58- She is getting indicator ports added to the cylinders so we can take indicator cards. 58 has an offbeat exhaust and I will be looking to solve that problem by indicating the loco and checking the valve timing. New crosshead slippers are being made out of nylatron, a new throttle handle assembly made as well as a few other minor improvements.

J&L 58 Tender- A new larger tender with 8 wheels is being built. The original tender was quickly pieced together just to give us something to use but is way too small. The new tender will be quite a bit larger, have room for 2 tons of coal as well as space for a gas driven air compressor to make train line air. Going forward the tender and passenger cars will have straight air brakes operated from the cab. 58 will retain it's steam brakes.

Passenger cars- Our original Crown Metal Products coach has been sold and will be replaced by a pair of german flatcars, one will become an open car, the other an enclosed car. Work has yet to start on those cars but I hope to have one in service by fall.

Trackage- We have an additional right of way for 600 more feet of track. Land clearing has begun and I hope to have 300 feet in place and ready for service by sometime this summer.

New engine facilities- A new engine facility will be built using a CSX 50' plug door boxcar as a single stall enginehouse for the 58, with another boxcar added later for additional locomotives. An 8,000 gallon GATX tankcar will be used for water storage and an Erie bay window caboose will become the master mechanic's office. The boxcar and caboose will be moved to the site in early spring and I hope to have 58 moved into the new enginehouse by fall. Since this boxcar is pretty much a hermetically sealed container (the new end doors will be the cut off end of a high cube shipping container welded in place) we should be able to keep 58 in dry storage over the winter months with just the use of a dehumidifier inside the car. No offseason corrosion!

We are not operating for the public again this year but will host members only operating sessions on a regular basis. Anyone is welcome to join the J&LNG in order to participate in the op sessions. http://www.youngstownsteel.org

OK lets see how much if this actually gets done this year!

Assembly drawing for the new tender superstructure


The new enginehouse with 24" gauge rails bolted to the floor. The new doors go on the far end.

It's a shame you couldn't get your hands on an autorack.

But then again, FEMA might have them all spoken for, lol.

Anyway, I have no doubt you'll get this all done. Probably by June.

After some recent posts on RYPN, you made me do a double take to see who made this post just before I started to roll my eyes!

Rick, I'm impressed by your plans and accomplishments thus far. I'd definitely love to come out and see this when traveling gets to be a little safer.

hate to hear all of 2021 will be closed to the public. Love to come up and see the RR.

Do you just walk around assuming that everyone you see on the street believes in the "FEMA autoracks"? Might want to check that misconception at the door...

No, but I do think that more people get jokes about them than really should in a rational world.

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At Remlinger Farms, we used a small electric air pump for train line pressure on the Crown. There are two air tanks on the engine, under the running board. The air pump was pretty small, so the initial charge took a little while, but it wasn't bad. After that, the pump ran as needed to make up air pressure. Typically it would run for a couple minutes when you stopped in the station, how long depended on how much air you used to stop.

Power for the pump was via a large car battery housed in kind of built in tool box thing on the back of the tender. It also supplied lighting power. At the end of the night, you plug in the trickle charger and re-charge it.

The nice thing about the system was that it was virtually silent. The pump does make a bit of humming noise, but it's much quieter than a gas powered one would be. We routinely ran trains of 6 coaches and never had any problems with not having enough air in the system, even when running the fall trains where we run continuously, just pausing long enough to reload. The line is fairly flat, but the brakes were used a couple of times each run.

They use straight air, as the line is flat enough that you can easily stop the train with just the locomotive brakes so if there's a line break you're still OK. Slack action is a lot less with the train air though.

I suspect the same system would work just fine for your operation. I know you've got a nice grade, but only a couple coaches. Just choose the air tank sizes accordingly.

[/quote]Say it ain't so! Why would you use a gasoline powered air compressor when steam powered compressors are easily acquired? If a full sized one-lunger is too large, there are plenty of large scale live steam versions available as casting kits.[/quote]

Kelly, last time I priced out a completed large scale single lunger, they wanted $10k. Can you recommend something appropriate for this type application? Size, scale etc?

Anyone who's seen the 58 knows there's not much space to mount any extra appliances. It's about as solid as a locomotive can get. Accounting for cost and maintenance, a reliable gas or electrical compressor, at least to me, makes sense for the operations at the J&L.

No reason why air couldn't couldn't be compressed by steam sometime down the road, if someone wanted to make a donation of a compressor or the funds for one..

O'Conner Engineering designed and built a pair of small single phase compressors for the Jupiter and 119. And the plans are online, as they are public domain. Also, back in the days that Great Adventure in NJ had some Crown live steamers, I believe they had truck air compressors chain driven from one of the tender axles. That might be something to look into as well.

Of course, the General, when it was 'touring', had a pair of Briggsys hidden in the tender. One was for the air brakes; the other was to pump the diesel fuel into the oil burner.

I am working on a plan to build a smaller scale version of a steam pump but it will be quite a while before it is completed. So the gas driven compressor will pinch hit. It will be a new Honda with electric start and I may set it up to start itself only when air is needed. I think most of the time I will be able to run with the johnson bar and steam brakes, but it is nice to have extra braking power if needed.

At some point the 58 will be converted to burn oil and when that happens the Honda compressor would provide atomization air until steam pressure is up.

Rick sounds like he has this figured out as always!

Where might I find those plans?

On edit- Found them. http://www.ibls.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Promontory_locomotives