While waiting, do what I have been all afternoon- Watching old Bugs Bunny- Yosemite Sam cartoons on YouTube. Ha ha ah.
You know bought that than I would. I am a steam freak, not a diesel freak. As far as numbers go, I have a hard time remembering how old I am.
The E units are pulling out to finish up the tour. The steam engine will pull into Hearne tis afternoon where they will do what they have to for moving it back to Wyoming.
Something is not "ringing right" in this whole scenario. My engineers intuition tells me that there is a lot unspoken. Someone is shading things gray. That's all I'm going to say. Charlie
This much is what the yard master here in Hearne told me. The engineer in the 844 made a brake pipe reduction and the train kept going. He dumped more air and still no change. By the time they figgured out that the diesel was reving up, they had lost too much air. After the rest of the train was in emergency, the diesel kept pushing for about half a minute before it shut down. There was no one in the diesel as it was MUed to the 844.
They are going to hold the 844 the Hearne until they find a wheel lathe in Houston or Fort Worth where the will pull the drivers.
They will have to find a drop table that will handle those 80 inch drivers, and there aren't many of those left (like water towers, track pans and coaling stations). Pull the rods, drop the drivers, and then find a wheel lathe (a few of them left) to shave down the tires. Shame, the tires are basically brand new. All the drivers were sent back to TVRM during the last overhaul and were turned and tired. Some steam experts on "that other board" have rightfully said that it is critical for a steam loco to have all drivers exactly the same diameter. Russell, I think what you heard from the yardmaster is what happened, and if it did, there was a malfunction of the MU unit in the diesel. :tb-sad:
I suppose they could use cranes to lift the locomotive off the drivers like they did with the Milwaukee 261. They still may decide to run it back to Cheyenne but that would be a slow trip. The crew said it was OK up to about 20 MPH but if they pushed her much faster than that she really started pounding and it got real rough. Here they are limping into Hearne.
I heard that it was the 1982 MoPac heritage diesel that did the dirty deed. It was back behind the locomotive tender and two water tenders, so up in the cab of 844, they did not know what it was doing until it was too late.
I can imagine what the track gangs would say, if they broke a bunch of rail. :eek; I'm wondering if there will be a change next trip, to having someone in the "helper" cab? Or if they'll go as before?
While waiting for the 844 to show up, I met a real interesting fellow. UP hires him and his truck to haul fuel for the steam locomotives. In the past, they had problems with the quality of the recycled motor oil that they burn. Sometimes it had antifreeze mixed in it that would really screw up the injectors. Sometimes the company they contracted to deliver the fuel would show up at the wrong place or not at all. This guy picks up a load from the same plant in Iowa, that guarantees its product, and drives it to where the locomotive will be refueled. He carries enough to fill the tender about three times and then he has to go back to Iowa for another load. They schedule the long two day layovers on a tour so he has time to get a load and make it back in time. When they go out west to California they lease another tanker to fill up at the plant in Iowa and meet him half way to transfer the load. He was in constant contact with the crew and usually had the latest information about what was going on. The old boys from Texas had fun teasing him about his accent and some of the "dialect" he uses, coming from Wisconsin and all. We were giving out free cake, water and soft drinks at the depot to visitors who dropped in while waiting for the train. He would tell them they could have a "Pop" from the cooler and folks would look at him and go "What?" Here is the old depot where we were hanging out most of the time. This is one of the cakes that we were giving people samples of to celebrate. It had a photo on it of the 844 in front of the depot.
The locomotive is on the move again. I heard they are going ahead and try to limp all the way back to Cheyenne at slow speed. The tracking chart right now shows it less than a mile away from my property in Milam County. Something is wrong with the GPS tracker as there ain't no railroad tracks there.
