After wasting ten years of my life trying the "volunteer" route to get into the seat of a locomotive all I've got to show for it is alot of bitterness and getting screwed over by THREE separate groups that promised the world when I signed up and after a few years of grass cutting and crap work told me to shove off when it came to getting to play with anything.

You guys wonder why younger people won't even talk to a museum anymore - there's your reason but that's another discussion.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that if I ever want to run a locomotive I'm going to have to shell out $200+ bucks just for an hour to do so but all the groups that offer this sort of thing seem to be out west.

Are there any groups in the mid-south area TN, IN, OH, etc that offer this sort of thing? The closet I've found in New Hope Valley in North Carolina but thats too far to drive just to cop a feel for an hour.

Hi,

There's a lot of issues that include some Fed regulations that were not there in the 1970s. I have had many cab rides but never had my hands on the throttle.

UNTIL, I purchased a Live Steamer. I've operated 8-12 live steamers over the years. Not the same as full size but an achievable goal.

May be an option for you.

Doug vV

Wow ! Meanwhile at Sumpter Valley Ry , We have to beg the engine crews to show up and run lol, If anyone is interested in being train crew, our entry level position is rear brakeman on the excursion train (grass mowing is optional ) ..

Jerry

Oh, we can give you a lot more than an hour's worth.

If you just want to pull the throttle and blow the whistle, that's fine. But there's a lot more to steam than that. if you want the full-on experience, come on out at 6:00 am and help us light off and get the engine ready for the day. No extra charge. I'll make sure you go home dead tired by the end of the day. The hour's time running might be the most boring part of the day for you.

I'll be over there shortly. I could use some steam throttle time.

Joe

It's not the starting that's the challenge, it's the stopping.

Air brakes, air brakes, air brakes!

Should I ever find myself behind a throttle, it's the one thing I'd focus on.

Possibly why I prefer firing more--though my only railroad experience is with oil--so I'm probably in for an ugly surprise.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

I have a 7.5 gauge train actually. A couple of battery diesels and short freight train. I've had it for a couple years and have been trying to sell it off or even just trade it for a small steam switcher to play with. Selling live steam scale stuff is like pulling hens teeth since the only emails I ever get are from guys that waived bye bye to reality somewhere around the late 1960's and think they should be able to buy two live steam scale electric engines, five steel freight cars, and have the whole 900 pounds of it shipped across the country to them for the price of a Bachmann Big Hauler.

It's fun and all but I live in KY which happens to be the only state in the lower 48 (besides WV) with no live steam club track so I have to drive 5 hours to Ohio or Tennessee and stay in $60 a night rat traps because I can't afford anything else and can only go a couple times a year anyway.

I've always just wanted to run a real one anyway but since KY is a rail preservation black hole that's never happening around here.

Michael is correct. Study the old 6ET (1906 era) air brake books to get started.

Well, running an engine light like you do in "Engineer for an Hour" programs, it isn't that difficult. Maybe just isn't as reactive as one might be used to with an automobile, for instance. Stretch braking with a train, however, is a little different.

I think you need to look in the mirror. I've been involved in railway preservation for over 20 years and the only thing I'm qualified to operate is a streetcar, yet I keep going back. I've worked on steam, diesel and electric. I spent the day in the fireman's seat on an EMD MRS-1 at Heber Valley today and had a great time.

Also, you never "play" with equipment. It isn't a toy, and thinking of it in that mindset is a good way to get yourself and/or others hurt and killed.

Perhaps your attitude is the issue. If the only gratification you can get is from tugging the throttle, then maybe you should look for something else to do.

Also, your parameters of what you want are unreasonable. You don't want to travel more than 5-6 hours from your (presumably) central Kentucky location, as you can barely afford $60.00 a night hotels. You want to pay $200.00 or less, but want to do more than get an hour or two of run time.

If this is something you really want to do, I would suggest that you save your pennies and go to something like Nevada Northern's Railroad Reality Week.

10 years ago I was an exchange student in Germany. I also volunteered at a railroad museum there in my free time and they did mainline operations with steam engines several times a year, but it was only qualified people who would operate (a couple volunteers, a couple of full time employees of the museum and a couple railroad engineers/drivers) due to legal reasons. I also have live steam experience (Dad and I built three 7.5" gauge steam engines) and that knowledge and experience did help but I was mainly helping with the dirty jobs that no one wanted to do but had to get done. I helped clean and wire wheel a tender tank, clean out smokeboxes and help prepare them for new patches, clean and wash the locomotives, helped with some tie replacement and helped remove parts from engines that needed work done to them. I didn't mind not being allowed to touch the regulators or "drive" the engines. I enjoyed working on them and helping to preserve them and learning more German than what they teach you in school.

Everyone has something they seek to get out of this, and I don't see a problem if one of his goals is to be able to run a locomotive.

Do I need to make a list of organizations that advertise on their website "we will train you to run the locomotive!"? We/they know that is a draw and they work that angle.

Not all places are like this, but a lot of them are perfectly willing to let you work the grunt jobs till you start to aspire for more, then they pretty much push you out.

There is also the tradition/union angle, Railroaders who look at it like "you didn't spend years as a full time switchman, brakeman, fireman, conductor, and work your way up the engineer board, how could you POSSIBLY -EVER- be competent to run our little train on 5 miles of level track at speeds approaching a brisk walk!

If you want volunteers, you have to make a reasonable effort to accommodate their goals.

This thread comes to mind, and probably deserves review as well: http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34936

I have a list here, though I haven't updated it in a while, so stuff may have changed.

If you know of any I've missed, please let me know.

http://www.railroaddata.com/rrlinks/Eng ... _Programs/

I am specifically excluding engineer-for-pay programs in my point-I mean the programs who flat out say "come, volunteer, work your way up, and run a train". While that doesn't imply a specific timetable, I would at least say that timetable must be 'reasonable', and while some programs somewhere might run into a glut of qualified, dedicated individuals that causes some to be arbitrarily excluded, I don't think that is really a problem most places. If you got a couple more then needed, run them in rotation, what is the worse that can happen, you give someone more one-on-one time and training? We have pretty much run through all the people who were engineers during the 'era of steam' and now the ones who had first hand training under that group are a dying breed too. One thread on here is a lively debate on what they were wearing, and even that 'minor' detail isn't well documented in many cases.

Also see the volunteer bill of rights:
http://www.newcurative.org/resources/volunteerbillofrights.pdf

As usual, we have a problem of uneven distribution of opportunity and people to make use of it.....and much of it caused by ourselves. Restricting the chance to qualify or making it too time and effort consuming works against us all.

It shouldn't be to hard to qualify in engine service for anybody capable of learning the rule book, the technology, making some successful student trips, and learning the equipment and the line on most museum and small tourist / attraction railroads. I don't see a problem making those opportunities widely available without the imposition of years of shit work. Once qualified on one line, qualification on other lines should be even faster....rule test, student trips, cultural acclimation, and in.

Granted, there are some people who never will have the aptitude and the qualification procedure should weed them out.

Opportunities, however, that's another thing.....there may be 6 opportunities to run in an operating day, but 2 qualified engineers.....or 12 qualified engineers. Opening opportunities that are available for any qualified person can be done on the basis of other work performed as an award......or you might have to go begging for somebody to show up and take the train out. One line I worked with charged engineers $20 to run once qualified, and if there weren't any takers, trips were awarded on the basis of hours worked on other jobs. There are many ways we can devise to widen the opportunity without eliminating the reward.

I'd love to have 6 guys available for every job so everybody could take a turn, pitch in on other things during the rest of the day, and go home happy. This won't happen if you don't provide a short and clear open road to qualify to build the numbers of available staff. The payoffs exceed the pissoffs.

dave