The law said there must be two workng water supplies to the boiler leaving the engine house,Every engine had an injector or water pump on the fireman's side and an injector on the engineer's side. On the fireman's side when they took away the pump by putting the controls on the outside that was 3 holes they did not have to drill in the deck.The engineer's side came through the floor but when the booster was removed they put those on the outside. They could have had an aggreement that put the controls outside when the engine was shopped to make more room in the cab.That may be why the controls were outside as far back as 1939. LEW
Regarding the photo of LEW in the Alco FA.... Near the left edge of the picture I see what looks like two horn activation cords. What am I seeing? How were these used?
Mike, Yes those are the whistle cords,one for forward other reverse.As well as I can remember all covered wagons ,all makes had two cords.The GP-7 also had two cords.The cords on the GP-7 came over to the fireman's side and we would tie an order string to the rope and the fireman would blow the horn for the crossings. That how you learned crossing location and how many in preperation for running in the fog.You must remember the company wanted you to run just as fast in the fog as a clear night.That is why you had to know your railroad better than the palm of your hand. The GP-9 had one horn rope but the horns had 2 blowing forward and one backward at the same time.The GP-38 again had the horn facing forward and all models after were facing forward. Snow was a problem and nothing was ever a real success.Covers over the horns helped but a wet snow would still freeze and viberation woud not blow it off. LEW
Thanks, LEW, I learned something new today. The NYC covered wagons typically had two horns with one facing forward and one facing to the rear. I guess what you are saying is each had its own air supply valve and each was separately activated by one of the whistle cords. Was the arrangement the same on late model E8s (4000-series)? The reason I ask is that some of these had two bells (Leslie S2-M?) facing forward on the engineer's side and one bell (Leslie A-200?) facing to the rear on the fireman's side. Probably one whistle cord activated only the double bell S2-M for grade crossings. That sound could wake the dead!
Mike, You have got me. I was not around passenger engines that much. My guess with bells it would be a small air valve like one for one bell operation but with 2 positions. LEW
Sorry, I think I confused evrybody with the term "bell" - let me substitute the word "trumpet" and offer some pictures as examples. E8 4042 in 8/58 with single trumpet on engineer's side: http://gelwood.railfan.net/nyc/nyc4042s.jpg E84071 in 5/57 with double trumpet on engineer's side: http://gelwood.railfan.net/nyc/nyc4071s.jpg E8 4088 in 4/67 top view showing double trumpet on engineer's side and single trumpet on fireman's side: http://gelwood.railfan.net/nyc/nyc4088.jpg I hope this explains better what I was asking about. I am guessing that one whistle cord blew the forward facing double trumpets. The other whistle cord could be used to blow the rear facing single trumpet.
Mike, Now we are cooking. You are correct one whistle cord would blow the forward horn and the other the rear.You can blow both at the same time and we did this at crossings when the highway traffic would just keep coming.If the forward horns would quit and you used the rear horn while going forward the sound from the rear horn did not travel in a forward direction and was not a good signal at road croosings when running at high speeds. LEW
I guess if you don't learn something new every day you are wasting your life. I often wondered why some of those "trumpets" on diesels faced forward and some faced rearward. Thanks LEW and Mike for explaining that.
