Does anyone out there know how similar this stuff ("hot box dope" as some railroads called it) is to hard grease used in steam loco driving boxes and crankpins? My very unscientific side-by-side comparisons seem to indicate it's pretty close.

Can the hard grease be used to limp a plain bearing journal home? Anyone have any experience with that?

Howard P.
Journapak, CT

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In an emergency soap can be used to nurse a plain or roller bearing to a set off point.

I once had an SD-40-2 equipped with a Hyatt JM box run hot on account of a cracked cage. We were up on the Trenton Cut-off and had to walk it @10 miles to the nearest set out track at Fort Hill.

The oil in the box caught fire and was gone in the first half mile. Any oil or grease we could get in the box flamed right away. We stopped at a 7-11 (2 AM) and bought the place out of any kind of soap...bar, laundry, dishwashing, mens's room, etc. We loaded the box up with as much as much soap as we could and got on our way. We had to repeat this about every mile or so. It stunk to high heaven and the top of the box was glowing red but we got 10 miles out of it and didn't break the axle. I think the bar style Ivory worked the best.

The night was filled with grief....I think the dispatcher got fired on account of running a slab train in front of TV-1 out of Morrisville....I got beat for not walking fast enough for the people at Division....and the gift of the evening just kept on coming when I had to explain a receipt for eighty bucks worth of 7-11 soap on my expense account a month later.

EBL

Were it not for Colgate's "octagon" soap(original stuff, not the re-formulated stuff made today) the New Georgia Railroad would not have made it to where they were going who knows how many times.

A GG1 at Strasburg? Tell us more. Photos?

STP oil treatment has also been used in a pinch.

Hot box coolant contained sulfur, like cutting oil, to keep the bearing cool. The story about the fusee is interesting as I think they also contain sulfur. We always tried to avoid using hot box coolant as it was corrosive and ruins the journal.

The GG1 at Strasburg was covered with photos in the January 1975 issue of Trains Magazine. The photo(s) was entitled "A GG1 at Cherry Hill?"

It was an Amtrak owned GG1 that needed the work.

Howard, when I was engine messenger on Buffalo Creek and Gauley #14, enroute to Quakertown, PA, I experienced a hot journal coming into Cumberland, MD. The locomotive was placed on a yard track and blue flagged and I proceeded to craw under the locomotive. While surveying the situation, I noticed two guys in white shirts and ties and white hard hats approaching. I Immediately expected the worst, thinking the engine would be ordered into the shops. Instead these two gentlemen, their names escape me, but were later involved with the Chessie Steam Specials, offered their assistance. They suggested I try packing the box with hotbox coolant. They trotted off to a nearby building, returning with a case of the stuff. They then rolled up their sleeves and passed the coolant through the spokes to me as I repacked the box. After that they treated me to dinner, put me up in the railroad WMCA (As a railroad employee) for the night, then in the morning gave me a tour of the shops, before I left on the next available train. The coolant did the trick and I had no further problems on my journey. Don Fenstermacher

It might be an interesting excercise to get a hunk of that stuff tested to see just what's in it; maybe the sulfur is the magic ingredient.

Hi Don:

Charley Reinholt and/or Bill Corrick, by any chance?? Reinholt was a B&O road foreman or a roundhouse foreman, I think. I remember Charley at Martinsburg during a Chessie Steam Special with 2101; he was immaculate in a suit and tie, polished wing-tip shoes and a gleaming white hardhat, and was passing tools and advice in to the crewmen who were under the engine trying to fix one thing or another that was hot. Charley had not a speck of dirt on him, except for his hands, which were almost black with 2101 dirt. I was always amazed at that trick! The 2101 crewmen were filthy from head to toe, of course. Bill Corrick was a B&O car foreman who worked with us on the P-70 coach rehab project at Hagerstown in 1980; he was one of those guys who forgot more than any of us will ever know about this old stuff....

EBL:

Wow, great story! Another fun night out on the railroad.

Yes Howard, those were the two men, as soon as I saw they're names the bells rang. Yeah, some people had that knack of never getting dirty. When I worked at Menair-Fetzer back in '75-'76, Albie Fetzer was like that, all of us could be involved in a dirty project, all of us dirty - except Albie, he was as clean as awhistle. Hope to run into you some time, it's been many a year since I last saw you.

That was the one Kelly mentioned.

We walked another GG1 up from Leaman Place in 1977 or 78. Same drill: It burned out a lead truck bearing on the point of the Broadway. Squealed and groaned its way to our drop table behind No. 89, where we replaced the wheelset.

Great story Fensty. One of the best parts of the old days when we were at W&W was hearing all of your stories. You should write a book.

When 4-6-2 SP 2472's left #1 driving wheel box ran warm while running in reverse 10+ years ago (i.e. before a lot of tramming and driving box work etc was done), we sprinkled "Timesaver" polishing / lapping compound and some oil on top of the hard-grease cakes. "Timesaver" functions a bit like Boraxo: first it's an abrasive to smooth the surfaces, than it dissolves completely. It works! (We ran a "Keeley pipe" hose from the tender to drip water on the problem driving box and control temperature while it was polishing in.)

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McMaster-Carr sells this in 1-lb and 5-lb cans: www.mcmaster.com, p/n 4781A4, 4781A5, 4781A6, and 4781A7.

Once we tried a crumbled fusee instead of unavailable Timesaver, but the results were not as good.

- Doug Debs

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Fascinating! There are some derelict journals around here I would like to try this on ...

Thanks for the heads-up.