Appleford to Big Timber: 06:26 - 06:59

Running #420, the Upbound Freight, on the Daylight Pass Railroad

October 20 1954: 06:26 – 06:59

Without waiting for the station agent to clear them for the main, (the time-table they are operating under already does that as long as the semaphore is down and their departure time has arrived.) #420 is rolling through the east switch at 06:26, just 5 minutes after the Upbound Express departs going the same way.

This is cutting things close, closer than most railroads will allow, but if the Freight doesn’t get a move on it may not leave enough time for its switching duties at Big Timber before the Downbound Express gets there. Besides, the speedy Express is already a mile and a half mile up the line and gaining. it’s going to take a while to get the freight up to speed, and even that is still quite a bit slower than the Express, so there is no chance the freight will catch up unless the Express stalls. Even if that happens, at the slow speeds the Freight runs there will be plenty of time to get it stopped, especially since the Express operator knows they are coming and will be flagging the rear* if that happens.

*Or more likely, have one of the younger, and more spry passengers do the flagging for them since the Express Operators tend to be old men with tons of seniority. The up and downbound Express’ meet at Rockhouse and the operators will swap with each other there. The Daylight based operator taking over the Downbound Express while the Three Creeks based operator takes over the Upbound Express. This will have both operators back at their respective homes by 09:00 where they will have the rest of the day to themselves until they report for the evening run at 17:00. Again, they will swap places at Rockhouse and each will be back home for the night by 20:30. This schedule pays less than 8 hours a day but since they are hauling passengers, they are paid at a higher rate, and operating the high-priority, lightweight Express’ with no switching, and no ‘going into the hole’ to wait for higher priority traffic to go by, is about the easiest job on the railroad.

As soon as they clear the switch and recover Dean who has had to reline it* Tom sets about getting the train up to speed and setup while also performing the required running brake-test. At the same time Jake shuts off the blower, adjusts the flame, and keeps an eye on the boiler pressure and back there in the depot the day-shift station agent calls down to the dispatcher.

*Switches have a through route and a diverging route. The through route is normally straight and the diverging route is curved. (One exception to this is the equilateral, or Y switch on which both legs are curved, but the DP has none of these, not even on the Y up at Cutoff.) The bible of just about every railroad, including the DP, requires that switches always be left lined for the through route when the crew is finished with them and it’s the train-crew’s responsibility to see that happens.

“OS Appleford,” the agent says loudly into the phone’s mouthpiece, and hence into the dispatcher’s ear who has an open line to all the OS’s, “show number 420 departed eastbound at 06:26”

Down at his desk in the Goat Crossing yard office the dispatcher, wearing a headset with boom-arm microphone attached, responds “DS showing number 420 depart Appleford 06:26,” while at the same time making a notation on his train-sheet then moving  the magnet representing Upbound Freight #420 from the Appleford dot to a spot just to the left of the Upbound Express magnet already on the line connecting Appleford and Big Timber on his steel backed schematic of the railroad.

By the time all this behind the scenes work is finished Ronald is back on his perch on top of the tender, and since he is the only crewmember riding backwards, is the only one that notices that, though the freshly risen sun hasn’t yet chased back the shadow of the mountain here around Appleford, it has turned the San Andres range far to the west a light golden color.

“It’s getting towards the end of the month so remember to watch for torpedoes,” Tom hollers across the cab to Jake a few miles later as he keeps an eye out for the white W post that lets him know to start whistling for the level-grade crossing coming up that is protected by nothing but stop signs and crossbucks.

Most every engineer has, and will, run something over during their career, and Tom is no exception. The sound of metal being crumpled and shredded as an engine hits a vehicle and drags it along is bad enough, but when the collision is between engine and animal, or especially engine and person, the meat-grinder sound of flesh and bone being ground up in the running gear is the stuff of nightmares.

The experience, no matter how many times it happens, (Four in Tom’s 24 years in the right-hand seat, 2 relatively minor injuries by some miracle, 1 arm amputation at the elbow, and 1 fatal.) is not a pleasant one, tending to stick with a man for the rest of his life and populating his dreams, but there are some members of the public that just don’t grasp the concept of railroad right of way and use the tracks like a city sidewalk, or don’t understand that when hundreds of tons of train verses a couple tons of car, the car is going to lose every time.

In the crew lounges or bars you will, in the aftermath of one of these incidents, hear railroaders hoarsely cracking that removing people like that from the gene pool is a service to human kind, but that morbid humor is simply the same defense mechanism you get from cops and ambulance drivers, and behind the obligatory and half-hearted laughter they are usually hurting.

Fortunately, once past Goat Crossing there just aren’t that many people up on the mountain except around the depots where the trains run little faster than a walk anyways. And once you get outside of Daylight the DP main-line has very few grade-crossings, and this one coming up, where the new highway crosses the tracks for the third time, is the last until they are approaching the outskirts of Three Creeks, and that one is a mostly unused rocky trail to an abandoned cabin. But being the last easy access to the tracks, this crossing coming up also makes it a popular spot for the company weed weasels* to set up a test. They like the idea of a leisurely drive up the highway to the crossing so they only have to hike the tracks a short distance in either direction to get set up.

*The people charged with ensuring that other employees are complying with the stacks of rules and regulations that abound on railroads have a whole lot of names, weed weasel, for their habit of hiding in the weeds to spy on crews, is one of the mildest.

The Federal government require a certain number of ‘tests’ per month and since weasels, the kind that work for the railroad anyway, tend to be lazy buggers, they procrastinate until the end of the month starts looming then suddenly cram in their full quota in the last week or so, and this is why Tom reminds Jake to watch for torpedoes.

Torpedoes are small packets of explosive that can be strapped to the top of a rail with a pair of soft metal straps. When run over by a wheel they go bang, much like a cap in a toy gun but a whole lot louder. They are used to warn approaching trains of an issue on the tracks ahead. The noise alerts the engine crew to run at ‘restricted speed’ which isn’t a set speed limit but a requirement that the train be run at such a speed that it can be stopped in half the distance they can see down the tracks.

When conducting this particular test the weed weasels will set out torpedoes, usually two of them spaced close together to ensure the crew hears them but some weed weasels will only put out one, even though on the DP this sort of adversarial behavior is discouraged. Then they move down the track a ways, (After running over a torpedo the engineer is required to maintain restricted speed for a minimum of two miles.) often just around a curve where they can’t be seen until the train is close, and set a fusee or red flag in the track. The engineer must stop his train before running over either. Failing to do so will usually get you an unpaid vacation.

This morning no weasels are out and about, at least not here, but just beyond the grade crossing is a sharp dip in the track where a short trestle crosses a river, (In this parched part of the country it doesn’t take much to qualify as a river, but regardless, this trestle should have been raised and rebuilt years ago to level out the track.) which forces Tom to put a light set on the brakes while bailing off and pulling with the engine to prevent the slack running in as the cars free-fall down the dip behind him then slamming back out as they are dragged up the other side. This, of course, is not good for maintaining speed so he releases the brakes as soon as the house-car is on the trestle, which marks the bottom of the dip.

_______________

As #420 climbs up out of the dip we’ll leave the crew to their duties for a moment to discuss the braking system on a train, which can be confusing at first since it seems to operate backwards. And on top of that has a couple idiosyncrasies not seen on automobile brakes which can get the engineer into trouble if not paid attention to.

The automatic brakes on a train use a reduction in the pressure of the train-line that runs the full length of the train, called the brake pipe on some railroads, to set the brakes by signaling the triple-valve on each car to use air from that car’s auxiliary reservoir to pressurize the brake cylinder, setting the brakes. The major advantage of this seemingly upside down logic is that if the train breaks apart for any reason the train-line also breaks, releasing all its pressure and automatically setting the brakes.

The heart of a train’s braking system is the triple-valve found on every car. It has been improved several times since Westinghouse was granted a patent for the first example in the mid 1800’s, getting more complicated each time, but in a greatly simplified explanation of how it works, the triple-valve wants to maintain a balance between the pressure in the train-line and the pressure in the auxiliary reservoir on each car.

In the illustration above the pressure in the train-line has been reduced below that of the auxiliary reservoir. The higher pressure of the reservoir pushes the slide which is the heart of the triple-valve to the right, opening a port that allows air from the reservoir to enter the brake cylinder. When the pressure in the reservoir drops enough to equal that of the train-line the slide is nudged back to the left just enough to close the brake cylinder port. If the train-line pressure was dropped by a little bit the brakes are applied with a little bit of force. If the pressure in the train-line was dropped by a lot the brakes are applied with a lot of force.*

*Here’s where the reservoir to brake cylinder relationship of 2.5 to 1 kicks in. if the reservoir is too large the volume of air that has to be released from it to equalize pressure with the train-line is more than the brake cylinder can accept and the brakes would be slammed on full no matter how small the pressure reduction in the train-line. Conversely, if the brake cylinder is too large relative to the reservoir the brakes can never set hard.

When the pressure in the train-line is higher than that in the reservoir, such as when releasing the brakes by raising the pressure in the train-line, the slide valve is pushed to the left.  This does two things. First it connects the brake cylinder port to the exhaust port, releasing the pressure in the brake cylinder and allowing the spring to push the brake-block back off the wheel. Second it opens up another port called the feed groove that allows the train-line to slowly re-pressurize the auxiliary reservoir * and get it ready for the next brake application.

*This has to be done slowly otherwise the rush of air from train-line to auxiliary reservoir causes a drop in the train-line pressure which sets the brakes all over again!

The maximum amount of brake application with the 70 pound train-line pressure used on the DP’s Consolidations is 50 pounds in the brake cylinder achieved with a 20 pound reduction of the train-line pressure. At this point the pressure in the auxiliary reservoir and the brake cylinder is the same 50 pounds and reducing the train-line pressure any more has no effect on the amount of braking force. In virtually any case a 20 pound reduction is more than enough to stop a train. (A 15 pound reduction is usually the max an engineer will use and anything more than a 12 pound reduction is considered hard braking.)

OK, that’s how the automatic braking system on a train works, but buried in that description are a couple of idiosyncrasies that, if not paid attention to, can get an engineer into real trouble.

First off, with this system, though the brakes can be applied in a controlled manner, setting them in proportion to the amount the pressure in the train-line is dropped, there is nothing gradual about releasing the brakes on a train. In other words, if you have set the brakes too tight you can’t just lift you foot a bit and back them off a little like you can with a car. You have to release them completely then set them all over again, which leads directly to a second idiosyncrasy, namely, the engineer has a limited amount of air to work with.

Suppose the we’re rolling down a steep grade with a heavy train and use a full 15 pound reduction to hold the train, putting 37.5 pounds into the brake cylinders, (remember that 2.5 to 1 ratio of auxiliary reservoir to brake cylinder.) So far so good. We have 37.5 pounds in the brake cylinder and 55 pounds in the auxiliary reservoir. From here we can still dump an additional 5 pounds on the train-line if we have to and get the full 50 pound max into the brake cylinders and probably bring the train to a full stop - unless we’ve let the brakes get so hot first that they have lost their effectiveness.

But let’s suppose that isn’t needed and we successfully lower the train down the steep grade with our initial 15 pound reduction, but a bit further down the hill the grade eases off a little for a couple miles and we find that the amount of braking we have, 37.5 pounds in the brake cylinders, is too much here, even with the engine bailed off and pulling on the train in an attempt to keep it moving.

Since we can’t back the braking effort off gradually, we have two options, stop the train, tie it down with handbrakes, release the brakes, and start from scratch after letting the auxiliary reservoir pressure return to a full 70 pounds. Or we can keep the train moving by releasing the brakes completely and resetting them using the air we have left in the auxiliaries.

Choosing the first option means stopping the train for a good while, probably more time than the timetable might allow for, so, in order to keep the conductor, dispatcher, and road-foreman (The engineer’s boss.) off our backs we may be inclined to go for the second option.

But when we release the brakes the train is going to speed up quickly since it is still going downhill, and we need to reset them again, like right now! Only this time we’re starting with the reservoirs at only 55 pounds instead of the full 70 pounds because we can’t keep the brakes released long enough to pump the reservoir pressure back up.

Even with a reduced pressure, when we make a 10 pound reduction on the 55 pounds of pressure we has left we still gets 25 pounds in the brake cylinders and the train speed is back under control.

But don’t get comfortable yet because it gets worse!

It’s not long before the grade steepens again, the train starts speeding up and there’s that right-hand curve coming up that we don’t want to fly off of, so we dump 5 more pounds. Now we’re back to the same 37.5 pounds in the brake cylinders that was keeping things under control on that first steep grade. But, with only 40 pounds left in the auxiliary reservoirs we have essentially used up all our braking power and have nothing left in reserve. So from here on out, if we need more brake we're shit-outa-luck!

This process of releasing and resetting brakes before the system can replenish the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs happens often enough that there’s a term for it, it’s called ‘pissing away your air’.

For a few minutes it looks like things might be working out.  But the brakes, already hot, are heating up even more, which reduces their holding power and now we are on the verge of a runaway with only one  option left.

The AB brake system, which replaced the K brake,* is an attempt to account for this ‘idiosyncrasy’ of our train brakes by adding emergency reservoirs on each car along with a slightly more complex brake-valve. When sensing a rapid drop in the train-line pressure the triple-valves on these cars will dump the pressure in the emergency reservoir, so far untouched so still at 70 pounds, into the brake cylinders.

*The K brake, developed around 1900, was simply the original Westinghouse brake with all three components, reservoir, triple-valve, and brake cylinder, combined into a single unit. It did not improve brake performance or address any of the shortcomings of Westinghouse’s original design, but did simplify and streamline maintenance, though if any one part went bad the entire unit had to be replaced, so in practice it actually drove up maintenance costs. The AB brake, which did address one major shortcoming of the Westinghouse and K brake, (As well as going back to the separate components stratagy) was developed in 1930 and by 1953 was required on all interchange cars. The trick here is that at this time (1954) the DP still owns many cars built with K brakes that they can still run because they don’t interchange them with any other railroads.

Assuming there are enough AB cars on our train all we have left in our pocket now is dumping the last of the air out of the train-line in a last-ditch effort to get stopped.  If we're lucky that last desperate pressure reduction will be rapid enough to trigger the emergency reservoirs to dump their air into the brake cylinders on enough cars to get the train to stop.

Except –

To activate the emergency reservoirs there has to be a rapid drop in the train-line pressure, it doesn’t really matter how much pressure is dropped, just that it drop in a big hurry. In the normal ‘service’ position of the brake control valve air escapes the train-line through a small hole, letting the air out slowly so the engineer can control brake applications, too slowly to create the sharp pressure drop that will trigger the emergency reservoirs. The ‘emergency’ position of the brake control valve has a big hole (Going into emergency is called ‘big holing’) which lets the air out of the train-line quickly enough to trigger the emergency reservoirs. – But the Consolidations don’t have an emergency position on their pre-AB braking system control valves so it doesn’t really matter how many AB cars are in the consist. The only way to trigger the emergency reservoirs on them is if Otis, way back there in his house-car with no direct communication with the engine, opens his big dump valve and the triple-valves see this last gasp of pressure escaping as a signal to go into emergency.

Of course, assuming it does work, going into emergency often means flattened wheels, broken couplers, damaged cargo, and sometimes even derailment.*

*Propagation delays due to friction delaying air-flow inside the train-line mean that the cars on the front of the train, closest to the engine where the pressure is first dropped, stop first while the cars behind are still going full speed, creating the same chain-reaction collision scenario you get when the automobile in front stops faster than the following autos can, often with the same resulting mess. Or, if the reduction comes from Otis opening his valve, the cars at the rear of the train slam their brakes on first while the rest keep right on rolling. This is where couplers get broken.

To complicate the braking of a train just a little bit more, the engine has two different braking systems on it. The automatic, which works exactly like the brakes on the rest of the train by applying brakes when pressure in the train-line is lowered, and the independent which uses what’s called straight air.

Straight air means that pressure is taken from the main reservoir and fed directly into the brake cylinder through the independent brake valve. The advantage of doing it this way is that pressure can also be released from the brake cylinder in a controlled manner through that same independent brake valve, giving the engineer the ability to decrease as well as increase braking effort in a controlled manner, very important since the independent brake is used for train-handling, primarily controlling when and how fast the slack runs in or out.

_______________

When we catch up with #420 again she has a full charge of air in her braking system and it’s just about a mile and a half beyond the trestle-dip. About half way between Appleford and Big Timber

 Here the grasslands have been pretty much left behind, replaced by second-growth forest, mostly various pines and Douglass Fir, but with some hardwoods mixed in as well.

The area was heavily logged in the first few decades of the century, with a steady stream of loaded disconnects carrying logs down the mountain against an equally steady supply of empty disconnects headed back up. But the old-growth was eventually logged over, then in 1938 the massive sawmill down in Daylight burned down and wasn’t rebuilt, effectively ending large-scale logging in the area.

Over the past two decades the second-growth forest has been largely left alone and has filled in nicely. It’s a welcome change from the basin some 1500 feet below. This time of year the scattered hardwoods are putting on a show of color anemic by New England standards, but here in the southwest, highly appreciated.

The track-profile for the 7.8 miles between Appleford and Big Timber is similar to the track from Goat Crossing to Appleford. Initially the train is climbing a gentle grade of slightly less than 1%, but then it hits a steeper grade. Without the weight of the boxcar they left at Appleford #420 is quicker to accelerate and will not be slowed as much on the steep grade, but the difference is subtle because the car they left behind only lightened the train by about 21 tons, which still leaves them on the heavy side.

In addition there’s a long right-hand curve in the middle of the steeper part of the grade as the track nearly doubles back on itself while making the final push up to Big Timber. Curves increase rolling resistance and slow trains as flanges grind against rail* and the solid axles drag one or the other of the wheels, which is either turning too fast or not quite fast enough depending on whether it’s on the inside or outside of the curve, along the track. And curves on steep grades make it even more challenging to keep the speed up.

*The wheels are profiled, or 'coned', such that when running on flat and straight track the weight of the car above tends to center the wheels between the tracks and the flanges don't touch the rail, creating extra drag, but on curves the profile is not enough to keep the wheels centered and the flanges come into action by rubbing against the side of the rail.

This same "coning" helps the wheels, connected together by a solid axle, roll around curves without one or the other dragging. The wheels will naturally shift towards the outside of the curve which means the inside edge of the outside wheel, which is its largest diameter, is riding the outside rail while the outside edge of the inside wheel, its smallest diameter, is riding the inside rail. When that happens the outside wheel travels farther per revolution than the inside wheel, getting them around the curve without either one being dragged. But this only works when the curves are gentle, and not all curves on the DP are gentle!

Despite the challenges, when they ease off the main onto the west end of the siding at Big Timber, they are only running one minute behind schedule.

Blame it on The Wife!

There I was, minding my own business during one of our city shopping trips, all prepared to spend what was necessary, and only what was necessary, on organic produce when The Wife mentioned she wanted to stop in Hobby Lobby (There's one near our Whole Foods)  and pick up some nice ribbon to dress up a card she would be sending soon.

Well naturally, being the brutish clod I am, I soon bored of the rack of pretty ribbon and wandered off on my own.

First destination was the puzzle aisle because - well, what's an addict supposed to do?

With my just-got-to-have-it find in hand I then wandered towards the modeling section and found a display of something called Metal Earth which I thought was interesting enough to warrant a browse.

Predictably, I ended up walking away with yet another just-got-to-have-it find. After all, I needed something to occupy my other hand didn't I? And it's a train!

The Wife's ribbon cost a few pennies, my crap cost quite a bit more than that. . .

So, (he says, ignoring the hit to the budget) just what is Metal Earth? The back of the box answeres that question.

Sort of.

But until I opened up the box (Which, like a kid at Christmas, wasn't all that long after we got home again. . .) I had no concept of the level of detail etched into those 5 metal sheets (Unlike this boxed set, many of Metal Earth's models consist of a shingle metal sheet with instructions, all packaged into little more than a stiff envelope.) nor the complexity of the finished model.

Fortunately the clearly written (drawn?) instructions include a map of the metal sheet and point out the various parts with numbers that match the assembly instructions.

For a glimpse of what your finished product should look like (And when it comes to models, should and does are often two separate things.) Metal Earth's website includes 360 views of the finished model.

Eager to try this new stuff out, the next morning I wheeled my modeling station over to the east end of the barn where the light was good, and got started.

As advertised, it takes no glue or solder to assemble the model, but dang! some of these parts are a bit on the small side!. (Can you see the bolt detail etched into the central square?)

Such as this one that represents the brake-valve. Yep, even the bottom of the model is detailed with laser-etched brake rigging and applied reservoir, brake-valve, and brake cylinder.

The metal is surprisingly stiff and measures just a little less than 1/64th of an inch thick. All the bend or fold lines are etched so I got crisp, clear bends; but just, as the instructions warn, don't bend a joint more than twice or it might break. (Don't ask!)

Bends are best done with tools and not just fat-fingers. The box says tweezers are the ideal bending tool, and they are,just as long as its for small parts and tabs. For larger bends of the surprisingly stiff metal I found needle-nose pliers to grip one side and the flat side of a small file to fold the other side into the proper bend worked best. (This project pointed out to me that all of the half dozen needle-nosed pliers I have tucked around in various places are pretty much crap when it comes to fine work like this. Oh well, something else to spend money on. . .)

The slots are cleanly cut and the tabs used for holding everything together fit nicely, and in most cases a simple twist of the tab once it's inserted into the slot tightens the parts up nicely.

A couple of hours later I had something that bore a passing resemblance to the images on the web site. And I had three more cars and an engine left to build!

With limited impulse control, over the next couple of days I built two more of those cars before I could stop myself.

But stop I did.

Because the un-assembled model itself is just a thin sheet or two of metal and a page of instructions, and it only takes a small assortment of tools to build one of these, I re-purposed the box the set came in, which is only slightly larger than a CD case, and now everything I need to do some modeling is tucked away in The Van just waiting for my next trip.

Because their packaging is so compact there's room in the box to add quite a few additional models and I've been poking around the web-site to see which ones I want to tackle after I finish this train.

Appleford: 05:35 – 06:26

Running #420, the Upbound Freight, on the Daylight Pass Railroad

 

 

October 20 1954: 05:35 – 06:26

Three minutes behind schedule, the train rolls slowly through the switch one car at a time until the entire consist is on the Appleford siding. As when they took the main at Goat Crossing, the slow speed gives Dean time to drop off the house-car, reline the switch for the main, and catch back up so he can ride the house-car rather than have to walk half the length of the siding.

When the railroad first came through here Appleford didn’t exist. There wasn’t even a siding. It was just a place the rails passed through on their way to the logging grounds around Big Timber.

Cornelius Ford was a surveyor for the Daylight Pass Railroad, but before that he grew up in and around his grandparent’s mid-west orchards.  While pulling down a paycheck from the railroad for tramping around the wilderness finding potential routes for the Daylight Pass, laying out the location and heights of trestle footings, and ensuring newly-laid track was in the proper alignment, Cornelius was also seeing the potential in the land and the climate up here above the basin floor. Perhaps because Edward Bishop wasn’t a Midwesterner he didn’t see what Cornelius did and Cornelius was able to purchase a significant tract of land from the US Government who was holding it in public trust for the then Territory of New Mexico.

It was a decade before the first apples started coming out of Cornelius’ orchards, a decade he funded by cutting the abundant hay in the area and shipping it to a stockyard down in El Paso. By the time another half-decade had gone by he had built the cider mill/packinghouse, the railroad had added a siding and two spurs, and a small village was growing up around him populated by orchard workers and railroaders. And, since the highway was put in, also by residents that work down in Daylight but commute back and forth to Appleford to live in the milder climate here above the basin floor.

Again, when Tom eases the train to a stop on the siding at Appleford he does it with a light touch of the independent brake, bunching up the slack. This time he’s not thinking of starting the train so much as his is of taking the pressure off the coupling pins, because now the work starts, and they could have used those lost 3 minutes because there’s a lot to get done before the Express rolls in at 06:16.

He has stopped with the last car, the empty boxcar destined for Appleford Packing, sitting short of the points of the switch to the packing house spur. With all forward motion stopped, and despite the time-crunch, he waits a moment to make sure the tank car has settled down because he isn’t using the car’s brakes, only the engine’s brakes, here in order to speed up the work, though he doesn’t have to look back to know that Otis is standing on the vestibule of the house-car cranking in the hand-brake.

Though it’s a lot of work, what with the stopping and starting and reversing and coupling and uncoupling that all the switching requires, one of the things Tom likes about holding this freight-job is that for most runs he has the same crew with him, and it is a good crew that knows what needs to be done and works well together.

With Tom keeping a close eye on him, Dean briefly disappears between the boxcar and the empty gon in front of it to close the angle-cocks on the rear of the gon and the front of the boxcar and gets back out from between quickly.  From a relatively safe position beside the cars, he then gives the cut-bar on the gon a quick jerk, which pulls the pin that has been preventing the coupler-knuckle from pivoting open.

At this point Tom whistles off, releases the brakes on the engine, and eases forward slowly. Once the slack is pulled out the un-locked coupler knuckle swings open, the air-hoses between the uncoupled cars stretch out, and then, as designed, separate at the glad-hands with loud pop. Because Dean closed the angle-cocks on both cars the air in the train-line under the moving cars as well as the section under the stationary box and house-cars is contained and keeps the brakes from setting, which will make a couple of the next moves easier.

Trapping the air under the cars left behind is called ‘bottling the cars’.  Because it’s inevitable that either the pressure in the train-line will eventually leak down enough to set the brakes, or the air in the reservoirs will leak out making it impossible to set the brakes, this is only done if the cars are going to be sitting there temporarily and with enough handbrakes cranked in to hold the string, which in this case is only two cars so requires just one set of brakes cranked in.

Tom continues to ease the train forward until the gon is no longer fouling the switch to the spur, then stops and repeats the throttle off, reverser centered, to safe the train.

While Dean ties down the brakes on the gon and the flatcar to hold this five-car section of their train, Ronald uncouples the tankcar, and with it the remainder of the train, from the tender by closing the angle-cocks on the tender and the tank car and pulling the pin on the tankcar.

When they are finished and standing clear Tom whistles off once more and eases forward. Again the glad-hands separate with a pop.

With the engine freed from the train Tom rumbles down the siding to the east switch where Ronald , who has been riding the foot-board on the tender, jumps down, runs forward, and lines the switch so the engine can take the main. Once Ronald has relined the switch for the main behind him Tom taps out his three shorts and starts backing down. As he comes by Ronald swings up onto the rear footboard of the tender again where he can be their eyes while the engine is backed all the way down the main past the depot where the unseen station agent has his feet propped up on his desk as he smokes his last cigar of the shift. Tom doesn’t stop until he’s clear of the west switch where Ronald has dropped off so he can line it for the siding.

Rolling forward into the siding with Ronald riding the footboard on the pilot this time, (the switch is left lined for the siding at the moment) Tom eases down the track under Ronald’s guidance and Otis’s critical eye until the coupler on the front of 1428 kisses the one on the rear of the house-car.

All the house-cars on the DP, even the little four-wheel bobbers used on the work and snow-removal trains, have steel frames. If they were wooden frames, as was the case in the railroad’s early days, Tom wouldn’t be allowed to push the boxcar into the spur with the house-car sitting between the engine and the box as crushing one of these wood-framed cars and turning it into trash by pushing too hard on it wasn’t unheard of.  Instead he would have to pull the house-car off the train and set it aside on the main before coupling directly to the box for the shove. But the steel-framed cars like this one don’t have that restriction which saves time and effort.

Since the angle-cocks have trapped the air in the train-line under the house and box cars preventing the brakes from setting there is no need to buckle the rubber. Otis just needs to unwind the handbrake on the house-car before they make the next move.

While Tom had been backing down the main Dean walked forward and lined the switch for the packinghouse spur so it is ready when Ronald, who is watching Otis to make sure the brakes are released, gives him high-ball Tom releases the independent brake, drops the Johnson Bar forward and gets the engine moving.

With Dean clinging to the ladder on the front of the boxcar he guides Tom down the spur until the car is spotted opposite the first set of loading doors at the packing house as the customer has requested.

The two-door railcar dock here isn’t near as busy now as it was before the highway made it through Appleford then all the way up to Big Timber, though calling the sometimes rough gravel track from Appeleford to Big Timber a highway might be a little optimistic.  Now most outbound loads of apples and apple products such as cider and pulped animal feed are shipped out on trucks and the new apple-boxes that used to come down from the factory in Big Timber by rail now make the short journey by truck along the new road. But once in a while, when there is a big enough load of apples or cider, or maybe both, going far enough, Appleford Packing will call on the railroads to get it there and when that happens the DP has a little piece of the action.

Because customers are rarely willing to pay the demurrage (which is a fancy way of saying rent) the DP charges for cars spotted at a customer’s location for more than 48 hours, (72 if they are spotted on a Saturday since there is no downbound service until Tuesday.) this car will probably be loaded by morning and they will be picking it up again with tomorrow’s Downbound Freight. Then the yard switcher will have it sitting on the SP interchange track down in Daylight before midnight.

This time Ronald closes the house-car angle-cock but leaves the one on the boxcar open while Dean cranks in the boxcar’s handbrake. With the boxcar tied down Ronald pulls the pin, and Tom backs away. When the glad-hands pop loose there is a roar and the hose on the end of the boxcar whips for a moment as the air escapes from the pipe under the car. This is called dynamiting the brakes and the air in both the auxiliary and emergency reservoirs* dump their contents into the brake cylinder, setting the brakes hard.

*On today’s consist only the gon and ore-jenny still have the older K brake system with no emergency reservoir, the rest of the cars have the newer AB brake system on them.

Both trainmen ride the house-car as Tom reverses back out of the spur, waits for the switch to be lined for the siding, and shoves the house-car back onto the end of the remaining consist, the open coupler on the rear of the gon just waiting for it.

 

Dean buckles the rubber between the house-car and the empty gon while Ronald uncouples the engine from the house-car and Tom backs west down the siding and onto the main. Once Ronald has lined the west switch for the main Tom, with Ronald casually riding the small footboard on the pilot with arms folded as if there wasn’t 70 tons of machine behind him that is just waiting to run something over and grind it up, runs forward past the depot again until just clear of the east switch, then backs through it into the safety of the siding as Ronald relines the switch for the main at 06:08. A full 8 minutes before the Downbound Express is scheduled to arrive.

Their final move here at Appleford, other than leaving once the Express is out of the way, is to back down and couple up to their train. Because the brakes were bottled it only takes a minute to pump the train-line back up to 70 pounds. Fortunately another terminal air-test is not required at this point since they have only dropped a car from the consist.

If you have been keeping track, this simple, single-car drop into a facing-point spur, has required running around the train twice, lining a switch 10 times, stopping or starting the engine 21 times, and coupling or uncoupling 7 times. A heck of lot of work to get done in a limited time.

But instead of kicking back and taking a break as they wait on the Express, Tom climbs down with his oilcan in hand and walks around 1428 topping up oil-cups, looking for loose or missing parts, and checking journals with his bare hand, looking for any excess heat.

While he is doing this Jake is turning on the blower and setting fuel-flow and atomizer to boost boiler pressure prior to their departure, then climbing up on the tender to look down the hatches and check the oil and water levels, Otis is updating his paperwork, and Ronald and Dean are back down the train cranking off the handbrakes and checking that the lashings on the flatcar are still secure.

Right on time the Express, an RDC combine driven by a pair of 275 HP diesel engines slung under its belly, drifts on up to the depot. It sits there for 5 minutes as passengers board, (none) un-board, (one) or stay put, (three) and the operator tosses two express packages down to the freshly on duty day shift station agent.

At 06:21 the Express, with it’s toy-like horn, toots off and buzzes, baggage end forward,* away from the depot as it heads up into the woods on its way to Big Timber.

*One of the efficiencies of the RDC’s is that they can be operated from either end so they are always ‘pointing the right way’ and don’t have to be turned. Here on the DP they run baggage end forward on their way up the mountain and passenger end forward on their way back down as this give the passengers a slightly better down-mountain view..

Asset Management or Idiocracy

All entities, from massive governments and multinational corporations, all the way down to the individual, have processes and procedures, a bureaucracy if you will, in place to manage their day-to-day as well as long-term operations smoothly and effectively.

On the individual level this starts each day, based on the amount of grocery store aisle-space dedicated to this single commodity as well as the number of business establishments that specialize in it, with a coffee of some sort, and finishes with a ritualized bed-time routine designed to make sure we take all our pills and brush all our teeth.

Though I'm standing over here pretty much on my own by not being part of the coffee-klatch, I too have my share of processes and procedures and one of them involves footwear.

In the spirit of the first of the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) I own a total of 3 pairs of boots and 0 pairs of shoes. (Unless my 2 pairs of slippers, one in the living quarters and the other in The Van, count as shoes. Which, according to The Wife every time I try to wear a pair beyond closed doors, they do not.)

One pair of boots is my high-topped snake boots, one pair is my go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots, and the last pair is my hang-around-the-property footwear.



In the interest of asset management, (as well as the second R) that last pair are actually retired go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots with the laces cut short and permanently tied off just above the instep to transform them into slip-ons.



But there just might be a flaw in this asset management process of mine.



As the log in the pre-loaded app on my phone shows, I do tend to rack up some foot-borne mileage. Eighty five miles in March and, as of noon April 5th (when I'm writing this post) 20 miles so far this month.



The majority of these miles end up being pounded out by my hang-around-the-property boots which were already tired when they became my hang-around-the-property boots.

Needless to say (Yet here I am saying it so just how needless could it have been?) while I'm waiting around for my lightly used go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots to reach that not-acceptable-for-public-wearing stage so they can be moved down the list to the next level, these hang-around-the-property boots continue to be seriously abused on a daily basis.

Fortunately for me I am blessed with genes that give me tough feet. I've never been plagued with foot-issues, other than a few smashed toenails over the years, and have probably had less than a half-dozen blisters in my 65 years despite the abuse.

True, by this point these boots have virtually no ankle support left in them, the soles are worn down to the point of minimal balance assistance,



and the trails around the property where I do most my daily minimum walking (My goal is 3.5 brisk miles per day and I usually exceed that.) are mostly either up or down and generously salted with 1 to 4 inch rocks that roll like marbles when stepped on, but I actually consider all that to be an asset.

After all, a significant source of injury for old farts like me is falls. Walking this terrain with these boots ensures I'm constantly working on my balancing skills while building strong support muscles in my lower legs, strengthening my core, and keeping my staying-upright reflexes well honed.

Of course, all this is hell on socks. . .

(As for the 3rd R, by the point it's time to retire my current hang-around-the-property boots there's virtually nothing left to recycle. . .)

Goat Crossing to Appleford: 05:00 – 05:35

Running #420, the Upbound Freight, on the Daylight Pass Railroad

October 20 1954: 05:00 – 05:35

Right on time the signal out in front of them, just short of the switch onto the main, one of only two double-head, tri-colored dwarf signals on the DP, both of them here in Goat Crossing at either end of the arrival/departure track siding, changes from red-over-red to red-over-yellow, as the block-operator, still Harold Sneed who is on shift for another hour yet, conditionally clears them onto the main.

The top signal is for the main and the bottom for the siding. Red, of course means stop, green means proceed at will, and yellow means proceed with caution because the train in front of you is between 5 and 20 minutes out.*

*In the early days of electric signals for controlling traffic on railroads, before there were any standards, (Remember, this was before the automobile so railroads were using ‘traffic’ signals first.) someone thought that it was a good idea if green was a stop signal and white was clear or go, but if the colored glass, whatever color it was, was broken out of a signal lens it would appear white to the train crew which, as you can imagine, caused a few problems. Now there are no white signals, only colors. By the way, for oil-burning lamps and signals the glass for the green indicator is actually blue. Combined with the yellow flame this produced a green indicator.

Apparently these new tri-lights, or three color signals, a single eye that can show three different colors, are temperamental. More than once in the few months they’ve been in use Tom has seen the block-operator’s gofer come running out to kick at a stubbornly inoperative signal while holding up an appropriately colored flag as a substitute, so, at this point anyway, elsewhere along the line the only other “signals” are the train-order semaphores at depots.

These are the older style, unlit, lower-quadrant semaphores. If the lever and link operated red and white arm of the semaphore is angled down that’s the ‘proceed’ signal which means there are no orders to pick up, but if it is horizontal, or alert, position then the crew is to pick up new orders, usually because the schedule has been thrown out of whack for some reason.*

*Again, there was, and still is, no ‘official’ signaling protocol and some railroads adopted the opposite scheme, the reasoning being that if the linkage fails, not an unknown occurrence, then the semaphore arm will fall to the stop or alert position, that being preferable to it inadvertently falling to the proceed position. In addition, here on the DP, the semaphores are supplemented at night with red lanterns that are hung on a hook about head-high on the semaphore tower whenever the semaphore arm has been raised to the alert position. They are more work to maintain, but these lanterns are still oil-burners because those are more reliable than the battery-powered lanterns that some of the train-crews are starting to carry.

The Freight, and the Expresses of course, stop at every depot making picking up new orders easy, but the Ore and Pipelines run straight through several of the depots making passing 19 orders up to those trains a little more complicated.*

*If the new orders are 31 orders that have to be signed for rather than 19 orders which are just passed along, then the station agent will be standing track-side, giving the stop signal with a red flag during the day or red lantern at night.

In that case the station agent, who is also the block operator in most cases, takes two of the three copies of the new orders (One stays at the depot with the operator)  phoned into him by the dispatcher,* rolls each up, tie them onto a twine loop, and clip the twine  to a stick with a Y-shaped end on it which will hold the loop open. The engineer gets one copy of orders and the conductor the other.

*”Phoning” orders is a slow and laborious process that requires the dispatcher to say each word then spell it out letter by letter and afterwards wait for the station agent to repeat the new order back the same way to verify it was copied correctly. This is because these “modern” phones are scratchy, twangy, and full of static, which often makes it hard to hear clearly over them. The issue is that phone lines are very sensitive to a less than perfect ground, which is affected by just about everything, such as humidity, snow, branches, wind, etc., while the old telegraph instruments worked clearly through just about anything short of a cut line. Most the old-timers would rather go back to the not-so-distant telegraph days of “pounding brass”, but few of the younger operators coming up these days actually know how to use a telegraph.

To pass orders up to through trains the operator has to stand out next to the track as the train rolls by, not exactly the safest place to be, and hold the first hoop up high.  Either the engineer or fireman will lean out and, with a crooked arm through the twine loop, snag the orders as he goes by. Then the operator has to hold the second hoop out lower so the conductor can snag his orders while standing on the steps of the house-car vestibule. If either ‘hoop up’ is missed the train has to be stopped and backed up because proceeding without both conductor and engineer in possession of their copy of the orders, which are the train’s authority, or stick,* to occupy the track, is not allowed.

*In the initial days of block control railroading the ‘authority’ was an actual stick that the crew carried from one station to the next. There was only one stick per block and if you didn’t have it in your hand you were not authorized to be on the track. Obviously this was pretty cumbersome, especially if there were more trains going in one direction than the other, so the practice didn’t last long but the term – um, well – stuck.

Many of the larger railroads are switching over to something called Centralized Traffic Control where ultimately operators sitting maybe hundreds of miles away will control traffic on the track through lit signals, eliminating time-tables and train orders, but that’s not happening here on the DP.

With a yellow ‘conditional’ light in front of him Tom starts the bell, drops the Johnson-bar into the corner, releases the independent brakes, whistles off, and pulls a handful of throttle as he starts his train.

Train #420 groans into motion one car at a time as the labored chuffs from the stack slowly come faster and faster.

Just before he rolls through the switch and takes the main Tom eases the throttle in until the chuffs stop getting faster. This holds his speed to a slow trot to allows Ronald, who walked up to the switch at the main as departure time approached and lined it for the siding when Tom whistled off, to swing up onto the cab ladder as the engine goes by. Even then Tom keeps the speed at that same slow trot as, first the tender, then each car in turn, snakes through the switches from the departure/arrival tracks and onto the main.

Some railroads have ‘remoted’ their switches, especially those around yards and depots, so operators can control them from a centralized point with a lever and a series of links, or even just a push of a button if the switch uses an electric motor, but, again, the DP has no plans to do so, which requires the trainmen to manually throw the switches.

It’s still slightly over an hour till sunrise as #420, the Upbound Freight, takes to the main. Tom is leaning out his window and Ronald hanging on the ladder, both watching behind to make sure the cars are behaving as they roll through the switches.

As the house-car snakes through first the switch at the arrival/departure track juncture, then again at the siding/main, Dean, visible mainly because of the lantern he carries, with the skill any trainman soon learns, steps off and hits the ground running. He stops at the switch stand, grabs the throw, and, as soon as the rear truck of the house-car clears the points, re-lines the switch, the first one for the arrival track, the second for the main, clearly indicated by the green targets on top of the switch stands, though these are much easier to see in daylight.

With the throw firmly locked into its retainer Dean jogs after the receding house-car, grabs the rear handrail, and swings himself onto the step, giving a highball after the second switch to let the head-end crew know he is aboard and they can run the train.

At this point Tom turns around, shuts down the bell, lifts the goggles that are dangling around his neck, and fits them over his eyes as he prepares to get down to the business of running his train. While he doesn’t have to contend with the constant shower of cinders that coal-burners put out, even at the low speeds of the DP the slipstream slapping at his face when sticking his head out the side window to see around the boiler in front or down the side of the tender behind is hard on unprotected eyes.

Tom has one train out in front of him. The Upbound Ore, which should now be about 2/3rds of the way to Appleford which it will roll right on through, so, unless something goes drastically wrong, once it passes through Appleford the Ore will only get further and further ahead and is of no concern. But the speedy Upbound Express that will soon be rolling up behind him is another story.

While all other trains on the DP are limited to a 20 MPH top speed, except in Wild Woman Canyon where their top speed is set at 10 MPH and the West Pass Grade which has a speed limit of 15 MPH, the Expresses are the DP’s greyhounds and zip along at 30 MPH, 20 in the canyon, and 25 on West Pass Grade. Factoring in 5 minute stops at each of the 6 depots along the way, the Express’ zip from one end of the railroad to the other in just 3 hours.

Right now Tom’s job is to get #420 up to Appleford before #104, the Upbound Express, flies in from behind at 06:16. The freight’s scheduled arrival time is well ahead of that at 05:32, but to stay on schedule he also has to complete the switching at Appleford, which today, even though it’s just one car, is going to take some time, before the Express arrives. To make it to Appleford on schedule he has to average 15 miles per hour over the 8.2 miles of uphill track between here and there, so he focuses his attention on the track ahead and starts letting out the throttle.

Initially the track climbs a gentle (For the DP anyway) 0.62% grade as it follows along the bank of Goat Creek, which is more of a dry wash most of the year along here, but a few miles out the track swings away from Goat Creek and starts climbing, With this heavy train there is no way he will be able to maintain any more than about 10 MPH on the 2% grade between MP 9 and 11.7, and then only with a good running start, so he needs to get his train moving fast while he can.

It’s not going to help with keeping the train on schedule, but the rules require a running brake test as soon as practical after getting underway so, before he gains too much speed, Tom drops the train-line pressure to set the brakes lightly* while bailing off the independent to keep his train moving. As soon as he feels the drag tugging at them he releases, confident that the service brakes are ready to do their job as he gets down to the work of getting his train up to speed.

*A 6 pound set is the minimum that the AB brake equipment of today, which has mostly replacing the K brakes which replaced the original Westinghouse brakes, will allow because, in an effort to make sure the brakes set quickly when called on the AB triple-valves, which can sense a pressure drop of as little as a pound and a half, immediately translate the initial drop into a 6 pound set. (The Westinghouse didn’t, and the left-over K brakes still in service don’t, have this feature.)

Ready to drop a little sand in case the drivers want to slip under the force of acceleration, after completing the running brake test Tom pulls the throttle back notch by notch until it is fully open.

Opening the throttle too quickly will send a heavy slug of steam out the stack, creating a sharp increase in draft which Jake can’t keep up with, ejecting black smoke and sucking cool air into the flues, both of which are bad for making steam.

As it is, Jake is scrambling to adjust the fire and keep the black smoke blowing out the stack to a minimum while the speed slowly but steadily climbs towards the DP’s freight-train max of 20 MPH as set by the time-table.* Once he judges that the train is doing just under 25 MPH (Sometimes it takes a little cheating to get the job done.) rather than easing up on the throttle to keep his speed from climbing any higher Tom starts notching the Johnson-Bar back towards the center position which advances the valve cut-off.

*There is no speedometer on 1428, or any of the DP’s steamers, but like all experienced engineers Tom is able to accurately judge his speed by the sound of the engine.  And if he wants to confirm that he uses his watch to time himself against the mile posts.

It’s a balancing act between train weight, track conditions, boiler pressure, throttle, and Johnson-Bar that can’t be taught in a book. By notching the Johnson-Bar back towards center he is limiting the amount of time the valves allow steam to enter the cylinders. By leaving the throttle wide open he is allowing the full pressure of the boiler into those same cylinders.

When set up properly, during the first part of the stroke the boiler pressure is what is pushing on the piston, but after cutoff, the point where the valve stops allowing additional steam to enter the cylinder, the natural inclination of steam to expand as it seeks equilibrium with the atmosphere allows what is trapped in the cylinder to continue pushing, though with decreasing strength as the steam expands and the pressure lowers.

 The trick is to get things set up just right to get the most work out of the least amount of steam while maintaining speed. When done properly the exhaust stops explosively panting as near full-pressure steam is released into the stack at the end of every stroke, and instead the stack starts barking sharply but quietly with a minimum of pant or whoosh.

At this speed it’s easy to see why his train has a speed limit. The DP’s rails are lightweight and the roadbed is adequate but not great, and in places the tracks get wobbly. If you were to get down and sight down the rail at these bad spots, (Preferably when there are no trains around!) which move to different places from week to week as the unending track maintenance clears up one section while wear and tear roughens another, you would see that the rail, subjected to expansion and contraction as the temperature changes as well as pounding from passing trains, not only undulates up and down, but also wanders slightly from side to side. With virtually no suspension to dampen the movement, at 25 MP not only is the engine tilting erratically as it follows the undulating track, (Both rails rarely undulate in sync.) but is also lurching side to side as it tracks along any wobbles..  Riding the footplate is like standing on the deck of a boat slamming through a confused chop while the rudder is randomly wiggled from side to side. And a quick look back shows that all the cars are doing the same dance. But that’s part of railroading on the DP, the crew just has to hope the lashings on that flatcar hold.

While Tom is setting up the engine for running Jake adjusts the damper, fuel-flow, and atomizers to keep an even, bright flame spread across the firebox but not lifted around the corner of the brick-arch. This generates maximum heat by completely burning the oil fed into the fire and giving time for the volatile gasses created by the fire to fully combust before they reach the flues, ensuring that as much heat as possible is available to transfer through the walls of the flues and into the boiler water. When set up right there is a light grey smoke coming out the stack, if set up wrong the smoke is thick and black.

While juggling the fire Jake opens the steam-valve on the injector to push water from the tender into the boiler. He uses his experienced ear to verify that the injector primes properly and the check valve has lifted to allow water into the boiler, at which point he closes the steam valve down a little to slow the flow of water. He wants enough water to replace what has been used since 1428 left the ready-track, but he’s careful to ease the water into the boiler slowly so he doesn’t cool it down and drop the pressure.

The C-14’s originally had feedwater pumps on them as well that would pump water from the tender directly into the boiler using atmospherically exhausted, positive displacement, steam pumps, but they had two faults. Shoving cold water directly from the tender into the boiler on these engines that had no feedwater heaters to pre-heat it was not only hard on the boiler, but also quickly reduced steam pressure. And as they aged the efficiency of the feedwater pumps, with their many moving parts to maintain, dropped to the point of being only marginally useful. So firemen stopped using them and eventually they were removed altogether.

The injector also uses steam from the boiler to move water, but uses the Bernouli principal through three carefully calibrated cones.

As it is squeezed through the first cone the steam speeds up. It speeds up so much it creates a vacuum (faster = lower pressure, the same principal that makes airplanes fly.) that sucks water from the tank in the tender up through the supply pipe.  As the water enters the injector body it encounters the fast-moving steam which forces it into a second nozzle where the steam and water mix and are accelerated again. Exiting that second nozzle the fast-moving, and now hot, water enters the narrow end of a third nozzle. As this nozzle flairs outward the water rapidly slows, and since physics dictates that pressure and velocity have an inverse relationship, the pressure of the water increases significantly. (This is the same thing that makes your water-pipes bang around when you turn the tap off quickly, suddenly stopping the water-flow.) In fact by the time it exits the wide end of this last cone its pressure is higher than the boiler pressure so the water can flow through the check-valve and into the boiler.

With virtually no moving parts to maintain (There are a couple of shutoff valves and the check-valve) and cones that can be easily unscrewed from the injector body and replaced as they pit and wear under the tremendous forces, the injector is reliable, easy to maintain, and, except during the priming stage at the beginning of an injector cycle during which steam escapes down the overflow pipe as air is evacuated from the water supply pipe until the pressure in the final chamber is high enough to lift the check-valve, most of the heat of the original steam is returned back to the boiler, making it efficient as well. Its only drawback is that it is noisy, what with steam in the first cone and the steam-water mix in the second cone, being accelerated to such high velocities through tiny orifices.*

*Because it is so important to keep sufficient water in the boiler there is a second injector on Tom’s side, but his policy is to use it only when absolutely necessary, such as a failure of the fireman’s injector or a failure of the fireman to properly use his injector.

When the sight-glass is showing about three-quarters full, a judgment call based on experience what with the way the engine is jumping around, Jake closes down the injector. They are running on a slight uphill grade here, tilting the boiler backwards nearly a full degree, which means the actual water level is less than three-quarters of the sight-glass.  But they will soon hit a 2% grade which will tilt the boiler even more and pile water up at the back end, filling the sight-glass nearly to the top nut, and he doesn’t want it getting above that or water could carry over, or siphon, into the steam-pipes for the air compressor and generator, which use saturated steam* collected from the dome on top of the boiler closest to the cab. Excess water through the turbine that powers the generator can not only eat away at the turbine blades but the exhaust blows out near the front of the cab where excess water can rain on the crew, but too much incompressible water in the piston powered air-compressor could actually blow it up.

*Like all the surviving DP Consolidations, the steam used to actually drive 1428 is not saturated but rather is superheated which ‘dries’ it. This steam is saturated, or full of water vapor, as it is drawn from the dome above the middle of the boiler, but then it is routed back through U-shaped tubes that run the length of some of the upper (hotter) flues, which “dries” it by heating it well above the vapor point. This gives it even more energy as it is finally routed to the steam-chests and into the main cylinders. What looks like a third dome near the front of the boiler is a container for the sand used for traction.

While all this is going on both men are also keeping an eye on the track ahead (For one thing the Ore is about 20 minutes ahead of them at the moment, but only assuming all is going well.) and Ronald has climbed back up onto the tender where he can keep an eye on the cars behind. There is a dog-house mounted on the deck of the water tank to protect him during bad weather, but though there is a definite chill in the air here at over 4000 feet where fall is getting underway and the sun has not yet risen, Ronald chooses to sit out in the open on the lip of the oil tank instead.

As expected, by the time they are partway up the 2% grade Tom has the Johnson Bar back in the corner, or fully forward.* Even so, the hissy-chuffs blowing out the stack get longer and slower and their speed drops as gravity fights them, trying to drag the 380 ton train back down the hill.

*This is called the company notch because the engine is working its hardest which means it is pulling a heavy train as fast as it can, and a fast, heavy train means more revenue for the company.

Even though they can’t see much of it yet, they can smell the difference here well above the basin floor. Even over the odor of oil and hot iron, the increased altitude means the land around them is changing and has a different smell to it. The rocky browns, tans, and gray-green scrub of the basin is giving way to grasslands and small trees and the air has a more earth - less dust, smell to it. Granted, this time of year the grasses are mostly tan or golden, but it is clear that the desert of the basin is being left behind. In fact, in addition to the apple orchards, the area around Appleford also produces a significant quantity of hay during good years which is sent all up and down the basin, some of it still by train.

By the time they pass MP 11.5 and the grade is just starting to show signs of easing, their speed has been cut in half and the water level in the boiler has dropped noticeably. Jake works the injector hard now because they only have another mile and half to go before they come to the west switch at Appleford and it’s always best to add water when the engine is working which keeps the boiler water agitating, (Taking steam off the top to drive the train causes the water in the boiler to churn and mix  as bubbles of vapor form on the surfaces of the flues then break loose and push their way to the surface to replace what has been drawn off.) minimizing the strains of uneven heating on the boiler.

The injected water is hotter now than when it was in the tender, but compared to the water already in the boiler, it is cool and heavy, and if the engine isn’t steaming enough to keep things stirred up, it can pool in the bottom of the boiler, rapidly cooling the plates down there which stresses the metal shell and the fasteners that hold it together.

For the same reason, only a mile and a half to go, Tom only lets the train gain a portion of its former speed back before he starts easing up on the throttle, leaving the heavy Johnson-Bar in the corner because as the train slows that’s where it is going to have to be anyway.

Sure enough, they soon round the last curve and spot the west switch of the Appleford siding. Once they get a little closer and can make it out in the headlamp, they see that the green target on top of the switch-stand is facing down the track at them, which means that the switch is still lined for the main, which is no surprise.

The night-shift agent here at Appleford is nearing the end of his 12 hour shift, but even if it was the beginning of his shift, though he might very well be a decent enough man at home, around the depot he’s gruff, grumpy, and not inclined to do any more than his job requires, and that certainly doesn’t include tramping around to bend iron for train crews!

He used to have an assistant, an ambitious young guy, that would happily trot the 400 feet from depot to switch and line it for them, saving Tom having to stop and then restart the train and Ronald from having to climb down and throw the switch himself, but last spring, as soon as the young man had a little experience under his belt, he headed down the mountain to the greener pastures, metaphorically speaking anyway, of the SP. Since then the Appleford Depot has operated without an assistant night station agent.

Their time here at Appleford is limited and, pretty sure that 1428 can’t start their train without slack, especially here where they are still on a slight up-grade, Tom eases the train to a stop with the independent, letting the slack gather up behind him before holding it with a light application of the service brake. That way he’s not risking using up time they really don’t have by stalling out and having to get the handbrake on the house-car set so he can back into the train to get some slack for another try at starting her.

While he’s slowing Ronald climbs partway down the right hand ladder then drops off just before Tom eases the train to a stop, dropping a little sand as the drivers stop rolling. The sand will give them extra grip as he restarts the train on this slight uphill grade.

With a good trainman and the right timing it’s possible to keep a train rolling as the trainman drops off, runs forward past the moving engine, and lines the switch before it gets there, but that can be a risky move, both for the trainman and for the train.

First the trainman has to drop off a moving train, in the dark, run forward on uneven ground inches away from wheels that would slice right through him given half a chance, not to mention the pumping rods and cross-head just waiting to slam hundreds of pounds of moving steel into him, and then if the switch proves stubborn about being relined before the bogy-wheels under the pilot get there the engine could “pick a point” and break bogy or rail, or, in the worst-case scenario, put the engine on the ground.

Tom’s preference, after years of experience, especially in the dark, is to just play it safe and deal with a start once everybody is sure the switch is properly, and safely, lined. Even if that will put the drivers onto the switch’s frog, the most likely place for a slip, during the hard pull of a start.

A Small Comfort

Last January The Wife's nephew was murdered.

He was trying to protect someone else by talking a gun-wielding man down, a man The Nephew had given a place to stay. The man shot The Nephew instead.

The Nephew was a complicated man who didn't do the best job of taking care of himself, but would give the shirt off his back to help others, including those the rest of us do our best to avoid.

Violent events like this can cut some of the fragile strings that keep us stabilized within our world and that's a helpless feeling, but The Wife, while casting around for some small thing she could do for her sister in the middle of dealing with all this, came across OandBstudios where Vlado will, for a very reasonable price, turn an audio file into a personalized soundwave print.

Vlado works with you, collecting the necessary information and sending samples for approval or revisions, to turn your audio clip into a customized high-res JPEG that you can then have printed on paper or canvas. (He includes two separate JPEG's in the final product, one is for a standard print the other has an additional 1.5 inches on each edge for printing a museum-mount canvas.)

While hunting for an audio file The Nephew's other Aunt located an MP3 of him singing a song he was working on while accompanying himself with guitar. It was a work in progress and now progress has been halted, but in the song, which he titled Our Shining Light, The Nephew sings "Can you see my shining light." which seemed fitting for the circumstances.

(I wanted to include the MP3 here but it turns out that is complicated and involves creating yet another site on an external host, which I'm not inclined to do since I already have more than enough of an on-line presence to feed my paranoia.)





This is the customized image of The Nephew's own words in his own voice.

We sent the JPEG off to CanvasPop to be printed and mounted. Everything went off without a hitch and The Nephew's mother now has it hanging in her hallway.