John Franklin in Lyons Yard, Westville, IL - Lyons-Paris local. Larry Baggerly says: Here is my engineer!! John Franklin from Trafalger Indiana. I miss him still! Imagine doing local switching with that L-2 Lawrence Baggerly Collection.
Your "6 degrees of separation" experience for today... Our Explorer Post(of which I was a youth member and later an adult advisor to)used to camp quite often on the property of the Westville, IL Sportsmens Club. A couple of the youth members(brothers)were related to one of the members and we would perform service projects for both the Village and the Sportsmen's Club. We would also march in the Village's annual Independence Day parade. I didn't know that this yard existed or if it still existed in the early-mid 1960's when we camped most often. However one thing caught my eye once. It was on a "trash dump" site on the edge of the Sportsmen's Club property. There was a rather large piece of metal with a sort of oval shaped concave feature in the center of which was what appeared to have been an electrical fixture of sorts. It did not dawn on me until a number of years later that this piece of scrap looked exactly like the overhead dome light for the observation deck of an open-end observation passenger railcar! I am just wondering if someone had either scrapped a rail car near this area or salvaged this piece of metal for possible future use. Some fond memories of my long-gone youth! Charlie
More magic, Roger. I can't read the numberboard on the left L-2. Do you know what it is? Larry's comment was probably what really happened. I have seen big mainline engines doing local switching. One has class lights, the other one flags. There is probably a story to go along with this photo. Thanks for another great steam photo. What a crime that almost every one of these beauties went to scrap. :tb-sad:
Imagine - local switching with a Mohawk! I witnessed such an event in the summer of 1956. A Mohawk switching cars in the West Park Yard in Cleveland, Ohio. I could hardly believe my eyes. When it finished assembling a string of cars it hauled them westbound - down the extended yard lead, not the mainline, toward the Rockport Yard. Never saw such a move before or since. That may actually have been that Mohawk's last run before going to the scrapper. Wish I had recorded the number.
Jim, I expanded the photo, applied a filter and got 2816 for the number of the locomotive in the left side of the photo. Maybe Roger has a better shot at it with the original photo. Both locomotives then would be class L-2c built by ALCO in 1929. Many people seem to like the Mohawks with the Elesco feedwater heater hanging over the front of the smokebox. Personally I prefer this class. It looks less cluttered and could easily be mistaken for a Hudson.
one of my foamer videos, an archival,composite type showing steam operation on eastern RRs in the 1940s shows a Pennsy M-1 4-8-2 doing some local switching. Charlie
What Bagg was talking about was the reverse gear . It took 21 turns from full forward to full reverse.If you were on a local that really did local work it was a tough job . They did this to us on the south end a couple of times.On the north end on through freight seven or eight times set off and pick up each way over the road.Some of the reverse gear was pretty stiff and took both hands .That's why in one of my stories I referred to it as having gorrilla arms at the end of the day. The 2800s were an NYC locomotive.The B4 did not have any of that type. They were a better locomotive than the 2900 mainly because they had a Coffin feed water heater that performed better than the Elesco. LEW
Thanks, LEW. I forgot that the Mohawks had that power reverse gear. That would sure get you a workout going from full forward to full reverse several times switching! :tb-biggrin:
Thanks for that explanation, LEW.That feature was lost on me the first time around. Now I understand. Would switching have been any easier with an L-4b? I can't be certain now, but the Mohawk I saw switching might have been an L-4B.
As far as I know all Mohawks had the screw reverse.I do not know about the L-1.The H-10 also had a screw reverse.I have aphoto of an H-6 setting at Ansonia,O. in 1950-55 that has a screw reverse,engine # 1877.The H-5s from the IHB that had the Baker Valve Gear had a lever reverse. On the 1877 it does not show the valve gear but I think the H-6 all had Walschaert. LEW
This may be off thread but, with all of the snow and cold weather in In. then in the winter and now.Two pair of trousers, plaid shirt, hooded sweat shirt and long lined jacket to cover your rump when you walked.The brakeman had more on,and or a longer and heavier jacket.Nothing came off and you might unzip the outer jacket but that was all. The fireman, me, hugged the boiler and the brakeman when sitting in his seat had frost about 6 in. above his head on the back of the cab. Now with the diesels you did take off the outer jacket sometimes,the brakeman had to take off more .You always wanted to make sure there was plenty of paper towels and that you had plenty of tape. You taped the front,back,top and middle of the side windows and taped the rear door. The front door required a different approach. You picked up a paper towel, put a little water on it and placed it around the door one at a time as it would freeze on the door, but it was a good seal.I would use about 2 rolls of tape a winter. I made one trip from Crestline - Avon with only the wall strip heater working,all that saved the day was that the doors and windows were tight with no air leaks. It was about 15 below in the cab at 50mph but I acted like it was not cold. This lasted until we were about 30 miles from Avon and I had to admit it was cold. That was the last time I ever took a cold cab out of a terminal. LEW
LEW, thanks for that insight about how tough it really was in that kind of weather. I wonder what today's crews would do under the conditions that you guys ran? :tb-biggrin:
==================================================================== I can only speak for myself, but I have done the same thing that LEW has done with the paper towels. Those SD-40-2s were hauling machines but they leaked & rattled in every seam as they got older. Some crews carried their own duct tape and in the winter time, the yard office in LaCrosse carried a supply of it. However if you didn't have a supply of it with you, you did the paper towel trick. Hopefully you had a good enough supply of paper towels,if not you had to use TP but that was best used for another purpose. Unfortunately not all the cab and sidewall heaters worked well on the old locos that hadn't seen the inside of the shop in a long time! Winters now are still pretty much the same as in LEWs time. It's cold,snowy and icy! And doancha know you are gonna have a "dynamiter" in your train that will get you about 02:30 in -10 degree weather and a foot of snow on the ground. Guess what the brakeman will be doing? or if it is a 2 man consist, guess what the conductor will be doing. Fellas... been there,done that! It ain't fun but it goes with the job. Charlie
You are correct Charlie. The last few winters I worked and it was getting down to -10 and the wind factor about -50 if there was another train within an hour of your location you waited until he rolled by on the other track and did the repair work.Now if there was not another track we are in a whole different world. LEW
crank that reverse When the enginman was a jerk [the old I can't get that pin to drop]rolleyes: was a way of getting a little payback.
