No urban legend and no Belpaire firebox. The FRA was involved with this one, crew blamed mechanical failure of feedwater devices, FRA found no defects, 5 fusable plugs dropped. There is no excuse for operating a locomotive past the point of the minimum advisable water level. Not to mention running it out of the glass entirely.

No,

John is talking about the Louisiana Steam Train Association's former SP 2-8-2. Did it ever run after that? I think, Gettysburg notwithstanding, that this is one of the most serious steam incidents to take place in recent memory.

Thirty years ago, when I was working on the Cedar Point Amusement Park railroad, I became very familiar with what leaking flues look like. The Supt. at that time tried to get the absolute maximum use out of the locomotives between major shoppings (one of the reasons that they went from having six usable engines then, to three now (and two of those having been nearly completely rebuilt).

Anyway, a leaking flue usually makes itself known first by water leaking around it, running down the firebox side of the rear fluesheet. Sometimes it's possible to get them to seal themselves up temporarily - like until the end of the operating day - by getting more heat around the leaker. Cedar Point used well-placed firewood to try and do that.

If nothing is done, or temporary fixes don't work, the next thing you see is water spraying into the fire from around the entire tube, partially extinguishing the fire. I will never forget the day that Porter "Jenny K" finally crapped the bed in '78. I had four tubes spraying and five others leaking, trying to keep it going and the fire burning for another hour on a busy Saturday until they could get another engine up and running. (At that time, the CP&LE ran THREE trains at once during peak times.) Needless to say, Jenny was done for the season after that.

If the flue is not totally shot, it is possible to insert and roll in a "nipple" (a piece of tubing just a couple of inches long at the flue sheet) as a temporary patch to one or several flues to get to the end of the season. Something tells me that this would not be considered a "best practice" by the FRA, or maybe not even permitted, but once again this was common CP&LE practice in the late '70's.

I want to make it clear that what I have described was long ago and does not reflect current maintenance practices there.

Right, the LSTA incident. I am glad that's what was referred to and not one of the "legends."

Rob

Rich Melvin provides a first hand account of the recent 1225 flue failure. He was firing 765 next to the 1225 when it happened and went in to the 1225 cab to help get things under control. Basically the fire extinguished and the 1225 boiler drained in about 20 minutes.

Full account is on Trainorders. Great Reading. Things were done right.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... 10,1987796

Tom

It was UP 844, not 3985.

They could not have planned it better having Zach in the cab! He is an exceptionally knowledgeable and level headed guy. Good Job!!!

To say that Zach was the guy I would have wanted in there is an understatement. We at SRI are proud to have him as a member, and even prouder of how he handled himself. If someone were to tell me "your going to lose a tube, you pick the time, place and person there to handle it"....I wouldn't have changed a damn thing.

Except to not have it happen at all, of course.

#1225 will back up soon. We find a hot Berk fulfilling the remainder of her schedule quells a lot of gossip.

Sincerely,

TJG