Road trip!!!

goin steamin...CSX, you listenin?

good news.

First 4014 and now this. It's tough for me to warp my brain around the idea that she'll be running eventually, having seen her a few times in Baltimore over the years...
Anyone else get the feeling like we might be living in an age of potential where anything truly is possible?

As reported by Railway Age:

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/mec ... channel=35

Interesting (albeit wrong) that they refer to the engine as "the allegheny"...if only that were true. Nothing against the 1309, but she's no super-power 2-6-6-6

I've never run a full-sized locomotive, and even that wasn't steam, so I can't say for sure--I think there will be a learning curve, but it may not be too steep or long. This locomotive is not excessively large compared to some others (in terms of tractive effort and overall weight it compares to a 2-8-4 with a booster), it has low drivers, a good factor of adhesion, and it is a compound--if one engine slips, the steam flow will be throttled or inhibited by the other. If it is the high pressure engine that slips, the steam will jam up in the low pressure engine; if the low pressure engine slips, it will run out of steam from the high pressure one. That's based on a description of a very small Mallet tank engine built for trench warfare service, of which it was written that despite some very bad track, one engine or the other would keep pulling.

I don't know if C&O used it, but N&W had an automatic intercepting valve on their 2-8-8-2s which changed the engine between simple and compound without the engineer's attention. Of course, he could also shift it manually, and shoot high pressure steam into the compound mode for extra power.

The crew will also find out will be there are twice as many points to go around with a grease gun!

I'm pretty sure the N&W intercepting valve wasn't automatic. What N&W added to their modern compounds was a "booster" valve that could feed a regulated amount of high pressure superheated steam to the low pressure cylinders while the locomotive was in compound mode. This was used on heavy grades at speeds that weren't quite low enough to justify going back to simple mode.

I was thinking about this question myself- I wonder if there are any still-living N&W enginemen with first hand experience with compounds? N&W was still running Y-6's in 1960. I'd think to be senior enough to be an engineer you'd have to have been at least 40 years old or so at that time, which would make them over 100 now, so odds are very low there are any surviving compound-experienced N&W engineers. OTOH, you could have been a young fireman, maybe 25 years old, which would make you ~79 now. So odds are there may be a few surviving firemen with first hand compound experience. You might even find one with experience on an N&W Z-1, which was their very close cousin to the C&O's 2-6-6-2's.

Anybody out there know for certain?

Keep in mind that there are at least two 2-6-6-2 engines that have run in recent years, experience with compound mallets is out there...Black Hills Central and Clover Valley #4

California Western 46

I highly doubt it, based on my personal experience growing up near Kenova WV:

1) A gentleman that lived a few houses from me was a fireman on a class A. He once told me a story about the stoker crapping out just as they left Williamson. He hand fired a loaded coal train to Ironton OH where they got a relief engine. By the time they got to Ironton, he had only 150psi steam pressure (normally 300psi) and were down to about 20mph, but they got the train into the yard.

2) My schoolmate's father was at the time an engineer on the N&W. He had previously served in the 1950's as fireman for my grandfather on the N&W in Kenova.

3) Yet another local was a hostler in the Kenova roundhouse.

All these gentlemen are gone now.

There are a few that are still very much with us that fired or ran N&W steam. Some of them show up at the N&W Historical Society archives. I wish we always had a video or tape running when they recount their experiences. There's a Mr. Swann whose memory is exceptionally clear and descriptions very pointed. He's an absolute joy to listen to.

Video story from a station in Hagerstown, Md. on the 1309:

http://www.your4state.com/story/d/story ... Ig6-rpVElw

Just spotted this in Railpictures.net:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 749&nseq=1

Besides seeing the 1309 just after retirement, we also see a variety of C&O diesels in the typical sooty atmosphere of a (recent) steam terminal. As was often the case, one of the things that stands out is how bright those diesels are in these otherwise dark surroundings.

The "brightness" to which you refer is most likely a factor of color shift in the film (most likely Ektachrome or Kodachrome in this case) over the course of nearly 60 years. It's all too common for the darker, shadowy areas, which were always contrast-laden in Kodachrome to begin with, to get murkier and the reds and yellows to get brighter if a bit more "pastel" in such film aging. It's also grubby weather or "British weather"--not all railroading happens in sunshine with the sun behind the photographer's shoulders, as some rail publications or photographers might have you believe.

A few minutes with Photoshop or Lightroom and an experienced user could make this entire slide "pop" a bit more, and render the C&O units considerably less garish--perhaps closer to what the eyes or a digital camera would see in identical circumstances today.

Cant wait to see this under steam dare I say even more then the 4014 lol