Pete, you wouldn't BELIEVE how many times BN was dragged into court because some stupid driver claimed that they couldn't see the train because it was mostly green !!! The white stripes, headlight, horn blasting, bell ringing, even flashing signs and crossing gates, and they STILL couldn't see it ? Even in broad daylight, no less.

In cases like that, our lawyers would boil it down to one question: "How far away from the track was the train when the accident occurred ?"

VIVA Operation Lifesaver !!!

Just in case anybody was wondering, our project has been mostly in a holding pattern lately. For one thing, we're waiting on several subcontractors, who are in turn waiting on their suppliers. For another thing, both McHugh and Boilersmith have been rather busy with their industrial clients. Neither company is charging me anything resembling an expediting fee, and they took on my project with the understanding that customers needing their equipment ASAP so they could keep their employees working, would take priority over me. After all, my little locomotive is only a "recreational vehicle".

Having one's pet saddletanker torn completely apart and scattered over Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Canada for an indefinite length of time requires at the least a leap of faith, or at best, knowing who you're dealing with. While I vetted everybody thoroughly before letting the contracts, and have said from day one that I'm being well taken care of by all concerned, there is one more thing I'd like folks to know: Two months ago, when I went out to Pennsylvania to check up on Audrey, I left some signed checks with JC McHugh to cover future payments to subcontractors, vendors, and for his shop as well. --- GET THIS. They haven't been touched. I can think of plenty of people that I wouldn't do business with like that, and some of them "fix up old trains". Some of them would have cleaned me out before I even got home, too, but NOT JC MCHJUGH.

Folks around here know a good guy when they meet one, Sammy.

We don't have much new to report on Audrey at the moment but look for some news soon. In the meantime J. David Conrad has graciously dug up and shared some "new to us" photos of Audrey. The first one is in the 1960s at the IC Markham roundhouse where she was prepped to go to the Thompson Winery. It appears her cab roof is being given some attention in this photo.

We're always interested in finding new photos and stories related to Audrey. Many thanks to Dave for the newest batch of photos.

Tom -

Thanks for the new "old" photo of Audrey. Looking forward to any additional ones that J. David furnished to you.

Les

Greetings:

In my photo taken at Markham, the locomotive was being repaired prior to being moved to the farm, not the winery, John hadn't thought of becoming a vintner yet. Later, it and the four lumber company locomotives were moved to the winery. The 4-6-0 and the 2-6-2T which were at Markham, moved directly to Monee on their own wheels (on the IC mainline, luckily without incident) and then trucked to the winery. The 0-4-0 fireless was out there too for a while.

The winery was most impressive! Everything (except for the former railroad stations and the vines) were brand new. The tanks and equipment were imported from Europe as I recall. The vines didn't do well in Illinois. Most of the wine which Thompson made in Monee came from grapes from elsewhere and just processed at Monee. I was given a bottle of the first batch produced. The wine was quite forgettable but I wish that I had saved the bottle which as I recall, featured a line drawing of the 4-6-0.

Be well & stay safe,
J.David

QJ Driver, Sammy
Thank you for providing the link to this interesting thread, and for responding to my 6060 thread. I need to go back through this thread and read it in greater detail. Best of luck with the Audrey project.
I can't remember the year, but we rolled through Seaforth, Ontario behind 6060. There were no 80 mph speeds on that line. Although it is dead straight, the tracks were rather iffy back them. Goderich & Exeter runs it now, and they roll right by the old Robert Bell/Boilersmith factory.
All the best.

Thanks for your kind comment, Rick, and welcome to Team Porter #6.

Audrey Lives !!!

I was going through some photos recently and found this one. Don't think this thread has any shots of Sammy and "Audrey" together, when 0-4-2T #6 was still at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson. The photo reminded me that the Porter is pretty good sized for a 4-drivered saddletank lokey. Wonder where she might rank T.E. wise, compared to other engines of her type?


Les

Ah yes, Les, the first steps taken on an unexpectedly long and steeply graded road. The sun was threatening to come out, and this picture recalls the taste of Marlboro 100s and pit stop coffee, from a time when I wasn't nearly so old, ugly, and grouchy... To partially answer your question, Audrey isn't a store bought Porter back truck type. She was built in 1913 as an 0-4-0T, and her specifications most nearly approximate those of the lightest example of Class B-S, Heavy Four-Wheel-Connected Saddle Tank Locomotive, as shown on page 18 of the 13th Edition Porter Steam Locomotives Catalog. They list her with correspondence code KLEPEL, having a tractive effort of 15,000 pounds, and her most recent scale ticket was 60,000 pounds. This weight is minus woodwork, appliances, fuel, water, sand and lube oil.

I'll leave it to somebody more scholarly than I am about steam locomotives to finish answering your question.

Our buddys at Baldwin figured it this way:

T=0.85P X Csquared X S / D

P - operating pressure in PSI
C - diameter of cylinder bore
S - stroke
D - driver diameter
T - tractive effort

Have fun, Les. I don't know of Porter did it differently.

"The Steam Locomotive", by Ralph Johnson, uses the same formula for TE that Baldwin did. Plugging in Audrey's numbers gives 15,014 pounds. I know they made 0-4-0Ts an easy twice Audrey's size, but I can't say how much bigger they made them. At times like this I miss Major Withun.

It's hard for me to believe how much traffic this thread continues to get, even with the news coming in so slowly. Thanks once again to all of Audrey's friends for your interest and your patience.

There is one new thing I can report: HER WHEELS AND JOURNALS ARE DONE.

This isn't over, but if I report our intended activities before details are finalized, I will have to correct that information later on. Whenever somebody does that, the wrong information will never really go away, and there will always be questions about the correct information really being correct. So all I can say for now is:

AUDREY LIVES !!!

Great news! Can’t wait for more…

Sincere congratulations, Sammy!