The summer before the big accident I saw them operate 1278 without a fireman at all for a public trip - the only people in the cab were the engineer and his 10-year-old daughter. I thought about writing the FRA complaining about this, but I didn't. Later on I wish I did.

When Gettysburg got the 1278 from Steamtown it was a very high-mileage engine, but they put it back into service very quickly, much more quickly than a comparable restoration IMHO.

Chris.

I took that picture in 2001 at the Ohio Central Morgan Run shop. How did it get to Valley Railroad?

That 10 year old girl was no doubt the fireman. Roll your eyes all you want but as long as the stoker was in service she was quite capable of firing the 1278. I have seen the Cornels run steam trains with only one person in the cab. I know of nothing illegal about it.

As a matter of information this is not the only operation where the owner's daughter fired a G-5 using the stoker. Sally Showalter also fired on the Allegheny Central when they operated 1238 and 1286 in VA. I know of no incidents regarding the female fireman at either operation though it was probably not the best of situations.

Mom and pop style railroading is a dying thing in the US and I am not sure it needs to be in some cases.

John Bohon

I'm not an engineer (technical), but I would suspect that the stresses from the pressure shock during the failure would require the entire boiler will require metalurgical inspection, especially all the seams.
Any more knowledgable folks out there with input on this--would you reuse the remaining boiler or replace all?
S'
David D.

Would there have been a "pressure shock" per se, being that it was not a true (fortunately it wasn't) launch-it-off-the-frame boiler explosion? With the buttonhead staybolts it appears that it was a somewhat controlled release.

The button heads controlled the release. A crownsheet failure is not an "explosion" per se (in which one envisions tremendous amounts of energy being released in all directions) but is a situation where all the stored energy in the vessel escapes at a single point. Had it been are true collapse, where the sheet dropped at one fell swoop, it could have resulted in the classic catapault action. The stays were arranged in such a way that the conventional stay bolts pulled thru due to the softening of the overheated metal, while the button heads held...they were basically set up that every other stay was a button head.

There was no explosive "shock" that would have rendered the rest of the boiler useless...if this had happened in 1951 they would have installed a news crown sheet and had the engine back out on the road in two weeks. The very reason CPR developed this system of staying was so that in the case of an "uncontrolled evaporative event" it wouldn't result in the destruction of the boiler and locomotive. I would also observe that some G5s used alloy steel boilers (I don't know if the 1278 is so equipped) that had a tendancy to harden over time, and suffer stress cracking...I say check the steel and fix the boiler if possible.

IMHO the engine should be restored to prove to the naysayers that such events don't have to be catastrophic to the engine.

In contemporary days about 1960, "Railroad Magazine" claimed that the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal Railroad kept running steam locos because the New York State full crew laws required firemen on Diesels, but not on steam!

That's more or less correct. BEDT's 0-6-0T's were oil fired and ran with one man in the cab. BEDT also did not have air brakes, nor an air compressor, on the locomotives. It operated with steam brakes on the 0-6-0T's and hand brakes on the cars.

Here's No. 10 with the entire crew aboard. No communication problems here with the short sight distance!

A friend of mine told me about a trip he took on the Gettysburg. I don't recall if he said it was with steam or a diseasle. I also don't remember exactly when he said he'd ridden -- sometime in the '80s I think. He was not very impressed with Sloan & Co.

His report was that the only crew member on the coaches was a kid lifting tickets, and that they dropped the loaded passenger train by the engine at the end of the run. Now dropping a train by an engine isn't in and of itself all that dangerous a maneuver when you know what you're doing and have enough crew members on the hand brakes. But I'd think a good many more times than twice before doing it with loaded coaches. Dropping a train by can be done with only one person by bottling the air, but I don't trust bottled air and would prefer to have one crewman per car on the hand brakes just in case. Call me overcautious if you want!

I rode the line in the early '80s ('83, maybe?) behind the 2-8-0. I was still a clueless teen who thought he knew everything in those days, but I don't recall anything spectacularly unsafe about my ride.

The Gettysburg situation should be a cautionary tale of how NOT to run an excursion railroad. Eventually things caught up with them. Unfortunately,the people reading this thread already know,and the ones who need to read this thread won't. If you see things at your local tourist railroad that don't look just right,ask questions. If that is unsuccessful, a strongly worded letter to management and then perhaps a call to the local FRA inspector. We need to weed out bad operators before an incident casts a bad light on all of us with the public and the FRA.

There is no doubt the Gettysburg was not the most safe operation around. This fact was well known by everyone including the FRA. More than once I have seen the train load of people dropped by at Bigglerville. The same goes for a one man crew on the hand fired steam locomotives. Brake tests were done after the FRA told them they had to be by one person, the engineer. He set the brakes, walked the train, released the brakes and walked it again. The list goes on and on.

On the few occasions I worked on their steam engines I waited until I was alone in the cab so I would not offend my host and then carefully inspected the firebox. Then I tested the water glass, yes properly, the gage cocks, water pump, and injector. None ever failed to work and I never saw so much as a weeping staybolt in one of their boxes.

It is my opinion the FRA is partially responsible for the conditions that lead to the low water situation. Knowing the reputation of the operators I would have wanted to see the gage cocks and water glass spindles removed any time I inspected one of their boilers cold. That alone may have prevented the failure. Who knows how long it had been since either had been cleaned?

Other conditions listed in the report had been ongoing for some time. For example, the last time I fired or ran the 1278 was nearly a year before the accident. Yet this was the second year in a row the dynamo was not servicable and the lights were running off a Honda generator on the tender. As I recall there were no cab lights. Another item I remember in the report was the nonworking feedwater pump gage. I do remember the gage working but like the dynamo the last couple of times I was on the engine this gage was not working. It is my opinion the FRA should have caught these defects long before the crownsheet failed.

One thing that has always puzzled me about the report concerned the lifting injector on the engineers side of the cab. I do not have the report in front of me but there was a part missing in the injector that should have made it nearly impossible to start. I have used that injector several time both sitting and on the road. It was never hard to start for me. I have been trying to figure that one out for 10 years and have about given up.

My point here is that notification of the FRA may not do much good. I guess it depends on the inspector and his boss. Of course, we are also dealing with a different FRA than the one that existed then along with different rules. I agree we need to weed out the bad operators or better yet bring them into compliance. The question is how do we do it without putting the few mom and pop operations that are good operators out of bussiness through over regulation?

John Bohon

I'll say once again what I said about the Gettysburg RR for years before the explosion:

The Gettysburg under the Cornells was THE most "authentic old-time" steam railroading experience out there. Every aspect of that operation, from half-posteriored repairs to their approaches to crewing and operation to their facilities and rolling stock, were EXACTLY what any "mom and pop short line" railroad in "Mixed Train Daily," "Slow Train to Yesterday," etc. would have featured.

And half or more of those attributes are things we really never want to see again in 21st-century railroading. That railroading style should be left to the history books along with expendable limbs and hiring another hostler to replace the one that fell and got cut in half in the yard.

Just remember that next time someone wants to invoke the old "if it was good enough for my grandfather....." excuses to do things the old-fashioned ways.

Dear John:
A couple of comments:
The gauge for the feedwater was missing, as in not on the locomotive at the time of the accident. Without the gauge, the fireman had no way of knowing whether or not the water pressure in the delivery pipe was exceeding the boiler pressure (necessary to overcome the check vavle and get water into the boiler).
The connection between the delivery pipe and the check valve was leaking badly. There is a home video taken the morning of the accident that clearly shows a stream of steam and water spewing easily 20 feet from the locomotive.
The steam valve disc (part No. 11b on the Simplex type R lifting injector) was in place but it appeared to be a replacement part that had been improperly manufactured. What was "missing" was the portrusion (tit) that sticks out of the disk and into the steam nozzel (part No.21). The purpose of that "tit" is to restrict the flow of steam to the lifting nozzel (part 22) when priming the injector. When the injector steam valve handle is first pulled back slightly to prime, the "tit" prevents the full volume of steam from flowing. Once the injector primes, the handle is pulled all the way back. Now the "tit" is clear of the steam nozzel valve seat and the full volume of steam can enter the nozzels and combine with water and feed the boiler.
Without that "tit", it would have been very difficult to prime that injector. Not impossible, just difficult. Once the injector had primed, it would have worked fine (if all other parts were working).
Lastly, a quick comment in re-the FRA. In my opinion, they are there to look over our shoulders and not to tell us what to do. 49CFR Part 230 tells us what to do. I have been working with the FRA since 1981 and have yet to find them unreasonable (of course I have always been in Region 1...).
I hope the forgoing helped a bit.
J.David

J. David,

Yes you have helped a lot. It has probably been 10 years since I read the report and did not remember the details correctly.

The gage for the feedwater was on the engine the last time I was but it did not work at least the last 2 times I fired 1278. I tested the water pump the only way I could by making sure the water was rising in the glass. I did not remember the part about the leak in the delivery pipe at all.

I did not remember the details of the disc and tit. Perhaps this part was manufactured after the last time I was on the locomotive. Having dealt with cranky lifting injectors quite a bit I thought that one worked pretty easily.

One protion of the report that really caught my eye was the part about nobody, including Sloan I think, knew the proper way to test a water glass. I carefullly read and reread the procedure to be sure I was doing it right. It scared me a little to think I may have been the only person to properly check the water glass on the 1278 while it was at Gety. Am I remembering that detail correctly?

Concerning the FRA, having moved around a good bit over the years I have only had 2 or 3 problem inspectors. Most are good and helpful. I also think some shoulders need looking over more than others.

Thank you for your answers.

John Bohon

Dear John:

Initially, we didn't know about the leak at the boiler check valve flange. A while after the incident (but prior to the formal investigation), I received a phone call from someone I knew from the "Preservation Movement" telling me that he had been at the Getty the morning of the incident, about the leak AND that he had home video footage. I put him in touch with the NTSB and he let them have the footage. It was said that the leak had started recently...

The improperly made steam valve disk appeared to be recently made/installed. I doubt that whoever made it (or caused it to be made) understood the importance of portrusion for the proper functioning of the injector. I never tested the injector or any other part, all I did was dismantle parts I felt had a possible bearing on the incident for (and in the presence of) the NTSB inspector.

The gasoline powered gen set on the back of the tender was a tip off that there were electrical problems which led to the discovery of a variety of dynamo and water glass light issues.

Insofar as knowing the proper way to check the water glass for proper functioning is concerned, you are probably correct.

I would note that after the LASTA incident a couple of years ago, TRAIN tasked the " Engineering Standards Committee" with developing a training program to be presented twice at each TRAIN convention. As part of the process we came up with 10 questions (to which we were in agreement on the answers). Several of us tested our own crews on these 10 questions, finding some variance in the level of knowledge and/or understanding amongst them. So, a starting point has been established and the crews who receive training at TRAIN (or on their home railroads with training programs) will have a sound basis to build upon.

One of the things that I find frustrating is that I very seldom have the opportunity to teach any more (except in conjunction with our "Your Hand on the Throttle" program). Most of my time is taken up pushing paper around, meetings and finding/ordering stuff. But there is no help for it, it all needs to be done and we have so few people to do so much...

I'll get off my soapbox now.

J.David