After more than 12 years idle this Baldwin 2-8-2 was test fired this week.
Looking forward to see in operating condition soon.

More info on that engine from
mccloudriverrailroad.com

#19 - Baldwin 2-8-2, c/n 42000, Built 4/1915. Drivers 48", Cylinders 20.5x28, Weight 178,400 lbs., Boiler Pressure 180 lbs., Tractive Effort 35,700 lbs. Built as Caddo & Choctaw Railroad #4; to Choctaw River Lumber Company; to Cia de Real del Monte y Pachuca #105, Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico; reported to have also been United Mining & Smelter Company #2069 while in Mexico; to McCloud River January 1923. Purchase price $23,149.51, plus $2,109.83 freight and $439.16 conditioning. Placed in service August 1923. Sold 8 June 1953 to Yreka Western Railroad #19, tender swapped with the #16:2 on its way off the property. Leased to Oregon, Pacific & Eastern #19, Cottage Grove, Oregon, from 1970-1988, then returned to Yreka. Operated on the YW 1989-2008, somewhat sporadically in the final years. Sold 10/6/2016 at a sheriff's auction to Age of Steam Roundhouse, Sugar Creek, Ohio. Age of Steam repainted the #19 to the OP&E scheme it wore in the movie Emporer of the North by early 2018

Have never noticed this before, but the lower end of the combination lever extends so far down
low to near the ground. Wish the image was a little larger so I could be certain. Just seems odd to me.

I had 2 days of student trips on this locomotive in late July or early August of 1976
while she was on the OP&E in Cottage Grove. Willis Kyle offered me a job,
but I liked the security of Std. Oil and reluctantly declined. Lucky was I
as the lumber market dropped forever just a short time later and the rr. suffered.

It looks to be a function of having such small drivers, all the running gear is closer to the ground. Though it does seem the crosshead arm is a little longer than usual. But I ain’t no steam expert...

Tom- Here's a picture of the #19 in McCloud near the end of its service life there, then a blow up of that part of the image. Hope this helps. Still looks a bit exaggerated in the today picture, but that could be just camera angle.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Geometry to maintain constant lead at any given cutoff. I've seen them cut shorter after unfortunate "toe stubbing" and bending incidents, which would allow lead to vary slightly, without creating any evident problems though. It's a steam locomotive, not a Swiss watch.

.

...but, that's Shack's train!

All the five
Baldwin 12-34-1/4-E logging Mikado's
i know have this long lever.

Caddo & Choctaw #4 built 1915 now as Oregon, Pacific & Eastern #19 in Sugarcreek, OH
Puget Sound & Cascade #200 built 1916 now as Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade #15 in Chehalis, WA
Pacific Lumber #35 built 1923 now as Nevada Southern #35 in Boulder City, NV
see pics above

Humbird Lumber #4 built 1916 now as Hammond Lumber #15 in Samoa, CA
Polson Logging #90 built 1926 now in Garibaldi, OR
see pics below

What I found surprising that Baldwin make some different combination levers on two identical (but smaler class then above) Mikado logging engines built in the same month!

12-30-1/4-E
Manary Logging #1 now Georgia-Pacific #1 in Toledo, OR
Brooks-Scanlon #5 now Georgia-Pacific #5 in Corvallis, OR
both make May 1922

The specs are identical except the eccentric crank throw differs almost 1"

Any idea why they do that?

I know at this time every order was individual for each customer.
But did that difference mean that the piston valves with the same travel length one make the way faster then the other one?
Any influence on the steam ability or like Dave say above it is a steam locomotive not a swiss watch, don't care?

My thanks to Jeff, Kelly and others for their help with this.

(This part edited out account Kelly's follow up and I don't want false info out there. Sorry - my brain won't let me animate gear in my head anymore so I lost the relative position of the piston. Kelly is correct.) .... last I checked my math, the throw you show between the two is not almost an inch - it's just 9/16 longer.

As for the root why - Baldwin probably preferred the longer combo levers as they are more forgiving in machining errors (think backwoods maintenance facilities), and more travel means more/faster wear and more lost motion over time. As was pointed out they do get close to the ground with those little drivers and maybe the road with the shorter lever had more concerns with close clearances or debris contact so had to specify for more motion clearance.

.

ditto

Hi All

Has anyone considered the relative forces on the combination lever for each set up? It is as simple as putting a cheater on a wrench. Also notice the relative size of each rod. I think Baldwin was designing the valve gear to the Master Mechanics preferences. The longer combination rod would require less force from the piston to move the valve. However this savings would be negligible at best especially considering the relative little force needed to move the valve and the added weight to carry around.

This raises a point in preservation. The mechanical preferences of each railroad were unique. But this is a topic little understood as it requires understanding the person and their engineering preferences. One Museum is eliminating Franklin Wedge adjusters and a Stoker engine in their rebuild. In the past they have changed from oil to grease lubrication of pivot points (never bothering to remove the horse hair). Railroading is filled with personal preferences and we see these these preferences' in ways we do not always understand. I suggest you consider the Master Mechanic and the rest of managements preferences when looking at locomotives.

Robby Peartree

And I am going "off-topic" here, apologies, but I couldn't help but notice what looks like a (very recent?) application of Pullman Green to the sleeper White Castle in the left background in the first photo. Last photos I can find in a real quick search have it still in Ohio Central Maroon, but that was already 10 years ago, so...