George, and of course everyone else tuned in here. Your layout looks uh...err...well...okay, here we go, Amazing. Right about now I'd like one similar to it. It would be easier to restore. That's one Switcher/yard goat (butt's heads with other train equipment). Looks like the switch crews have beat the S#!+ out of it. Still running, I'll bet. I still need that coffee!! Can't get going today.
Very nice! The remaining front railing, barely hanging on, is an exceptionally nice touch! The very definition of "Rode hard and put up wet!"
Thursday morning, the 26th of January, 2021. Announcing a new Century Link, WiFi Service. My neighbor and I decided we'd had it with Verizon's Internet Service. Phone service signal is lousy in our area and until they add a new cell tower it will always be that way. I don't think 5G is going to solve this problem. So, we got our heads together did some research and came up with what we thought was a reasonable and affordable plan to solve the lack of appropriate service. Is it to good to be true? I don't think so. A couple of phone calls to other providers, a quick sign up on the internet and we got Century Link, WiFi hook-up, with fiber optic cable tied directly to the house. We switched over our computers and phones and tested it. It works. You can't beat that. When watching videos there's no more buffering, no more lag time. It's just awesome. I can't wait until I get Roku for my TV, set up again. The trains? Did you say this is supposed to be about trains? Sure it is. That's how I found this next video. So, back to the trains. You might remember me talking about a N Scale, N&W PV train I own, pictures included. Forgive me for bragging, or not. How about the implied discussion on the fact that most N Scale stoves don't have the pulling power that's needed to pull a 12 car passenger train up my 2% grades. I think I mentioned that. To solve that problem, I was thinking about an ABA set of Southern diesels. Now the video I found. You've got to love the N&W J series. Here's what the 1:1 foot scale did for their excursion train. Is that awesome or what? Wiring project? Proceeding nicely. i almost have all the wires insulation stripped off. Anxious to get past all of this and move to repairing the track. I need however, Diet Dr. Pepper, will do.
I noticed that as well. Usually these things get inspected before they are allowed back out on the rails. Humm!!
There has never been a locomotive built sexier than the class J. They has just the right amount of covering to be sleek and nakedness to so the working bits. I never get tired of seeing them... Thankfully one survived.
Another steam locomotive being pushed ny diesel locomotives. I see a recurring theme here. Just Sayin !
Your are so right. There is a recurring theme here. You mean you'd like to see it as it was. Like this? Steam Locomotives, I don't like seeing diesels tied in in front of or behind it. They were made to get the job done without all that help. True locomotion. It goes against everything I remember as a kid. What little I actually remember. Steam was King as far as I was concerned. The Rails of the time were concerned and they didn't welcome the diseasels (sp. intended). The early ones were fraught with problems and failed quite often. Frequent water stops for boiling radiators, over heated motors, all were common events with the early ones. Eventually the bugs were worked out and they became reliable. Seen as cheaper to maintain and repair then the steam so, they won out. The Rails used to call them...well...I can't repeat that here. However, the F in FT stood for what you might think it means. Not the front of the motor...either. I plan on having some events on my layout where Steam locomotives, will once again be King. However, unlike the real 1:1 foot scale my N Scale ones won't get the job done. What gives? Noticed when I looked for the media indicator the symbols in the black bar above are all screwed up? Where's my smiley faces or worse? Found them. They aren't obvious. Some sort of small print I can't read with my eyes.
To TB's Mod's, Okay, what did I click on to change my black bar above this post? Little boxes with very tiny print inside them. Want my old bar back.
Rick.... Try this. Hold the CTRL key down and use the scroll wheel to make the page bigger. Not sure that will fix things but worth a try.
Nope, didn't help. Oh Well. I can find what I need but it's trial and error. Just making it tougher to use. You must know if you haven't figured it out by now I'm a died in the wool Santa Fe Rail Fan. Mainly out of loyalty to the railroad my family of Rails, worked for and retired from. That also includes the D&RGW during the Moffett OOP'S my bad, "Moffat" days. My step great granddad would speak of himslef as a Moffat man. Me? I worked for a time for the Union Pacific. So on my layout you will see Union Pacific trains mixed in with GN, SP, D&RGW and an abundance of Santa Fe trains. Oddly enough I worked for the Union Pacific as an agent, lining up car loads and arranging for car service on several team tracks in the area. All while I was back in Dayton, Ohio. That's where I got my first glimpse of the J Series 611. The word "Love" is a word I use for how I feel for my family, relatives and mistresses. What? What? What did I say? Or admit to? When I first saw the J, in her second life (as many railfans refer to it) pulling a Museum Special. I fell in love!! Here she is in her third life. Now, I've got to get back to the layout so I can get my model train out and play with my version of the J series and PV passenger trains. Later!
In semi-defense of using diesels as assistants, Back when steam was THE motive force they could run the heck out of them, knowing a steamer would automatically be maintained/repaired if need be. It's not so simple nowadays with money being a major factor and so, they may want to be a little easier on those beauties for fear of one being laid up indefinitely. Sound reasonable? Doug
Nah....I think thats a diversionary tactic....LOL The only steam I need comes out of my cup of coffee...
One thing I learned during a tour of Steam Town USA (highly recommended!) in Scranton PA, was that when the diesels started really taking over, a steam locomotive required 2 hours of maintenance for every hour of operation. So a railroad needed three locomotives to do the work of one full time. And they needed shop capacity for twice as many steam locomotives as were on the road. And those shops required labor, in addition to replacement materials. By contrast, those diesels could run 40 hours for every 2 hours of maintenance. So a 40:1 reduction in maintenance costs meant that diesels purchased to replace steam locomotives paid for themselves extremely quickly, even if two or more were needed to replace a big steamer! And every time they re-built the boiler, they de-rated the max boiler pressure, so over the life of a steamer, it got less and less capable. I love seeing the steamers running, but would not want to pay the shipping costs associated with running 100% steam on railroads today! Especially considering the labor working to maintain them today are probably not nearly as efficient/experienced as those that did it back then.
I mis-stated one point above: The railroads didn't have to replace each of their steamers at 1:1 or 1:2, just the one-in-three steamers that were on the road at any given time! They could buy one or two diesels to do the job (including down time for maintenance) of THREE steamers. The point the tour guide was making was that it wasn't so much whether the railroads could afford to switch to diesels, it was that they they couldn't afford NOT to! They were literally replacing them as fast as the possibly could. The only thing that slowed the transition was the onset of WWII, when we needed oil for the war machine, and eastern coal-burning steamers had their death sentence delayed until after the war. Under the AAR, diesels were prioritized for western roads, where water was too scarce to run the number of steam engines required to meet the leaping wartime freight volume. The peak in the steam to diesel transition rate occurred after the war was over, when there was no longer any reason to keep steamers around, coal-burning or not.
Doug was right on as is Big Jake. At least that's how I remember it. Most of the stoves saw their last runs between 1954 and 1955. There was still some roads operating steam into the 60's. N&W being one of them. It's true that stoves required and were high maintenance. Consider how many times they stopped to service the Big Boy. Some of that could be done on the fly and/or at railroad sidings but at the end of the day the stove would find itself in a roundhouse being serviced and repaired. There was/were and still are advantages with what most Rails referred to as "Motors" what you and I call diesels. I mean what to rail fans know anyway? Glad you liked this discussion on stoves. Be cool and run steam. Thank-you to those who participated. Catch you later.
It was an informative discussion. Hijacked Ricks rebuild thread though... Not to be a sour grape. I like watching real steam run. You can actually see the power on a steam locomotive. 95% of it is on the outside. 95% of a diesel locomotive is hidden under hoods. I even have a good feeling for the N scale modelers who can keep thier n scale steamers running. I just have read so many threads on n scale steamer problems. I run diesels because...well... I drove trucks all my life and they where all BIG diesels. I guess diesel fuel runs in my viens. I have ONE steam locomotive. Brand new and it never ran right. Sparked like a welder somewhere near the front truck right out of the box. Its now on static display in THE Railroad Park. Plus the fact that diesel locomotive just seem to be so much easier to work on...for me anyways. In closing... Rick is a good friend. We live to pester each other. We both know its in good fun. This also goes for all you guys here on TB. If we cant have fun...whats the sense in even playing with trains... .
George, is a good friend. No doubt. When we get serious with each other that's when I sense trouble in the ranks. We banter about and it's all in good fun. Now about Hi-jacking. That's just Bull-stuff. You thought I was going to say something else didn't you. I did. Just not out loud. You can't' hi-jack one of my threads. Because, a thread goes where a thread goes. I've been throwing down things that help to motivate self. It's working and your participation here is looked at as encouragement. I look forward to getting'er done. So, thanks all for visiting, participating, likes and your interest. Time to wrap this up for tonight. Later.
Back on "track", I have watched steamers run WHILE reattaching disconnected wires! Before seeing 4014 in 2019, I believe the only steamers I saw running under their own power were one in St. Paul in the late fifties, a smaller loco (it seems it was a 4-6-0 or the like) in a yard as we passed by in the car, and C&NW 1385 in Rochester in the eighties. I saw Milwaukee Road 1004, a 4-6-0 being moved from the Milwaukee Road yard engine house to the fairgrounds, in 1957 when I was four years old, but it wasn't under its own power. They used compressed air to move the pistons and run it along "snap track" which they moved from the rear to front as they progressed along the streets. Doug
My more recent history of Steamers is similar to Doug's. I forget the year it was. I took both my kids out of school to chase the GS4 coming through Colton on it's way to the World's Fair, Mississippi. They remember it to this day. Sorry no digital pictures and the 35 mm slides I tried to scan, didn't turn out so well. Then there was the Union Pacific 4-8-4 aka F-E-F that came down through Barstow, Victorville and over Cajon Pass headed for Los Angeles L.A.U.P.T 50th Anniversary. There it teamed up with the GS4 Daylighter and several F and E types from U.P., S.P. and AT&SF. At the conclusion both the GS4 and F-E-F made a big splash with what was then called the Race Up Cajon pass. I got to see that in person. Wow! Then there was. I'll stop here or I should stop here. Nope! The actual years of these events don't quickly come to mind. How about the Railfair in Sacramento, Ca.? My dad was still with us at the time. He and I packed lunch and ran the gauntlet to Sacramento, Ca. We got everything together and headed there to check out the action. I believe we made it into one of the Videos. Present during the duration of the Railfair: S.P.'s Daylignt the GS4, 4449, U.P.'s 4-8-4 in the Greyhound Livery, and the Challenger was present. Along with a SP Stove out of Oakland and a bunch of other Stoves. It was a good day. Recently the U.P. Big Boy left the L.A. County Fairgrounds to return to Cheyenne, Wy. I was in Southern California, at the time but didn't get to see it in person. Today, it's been restored and took a tour over the Southern route. Unfortunately, I had moved here to Idaho Country and didn't get too see it in action. Sigh. Anytime a stove, valve and/or kettle is involved it's a good day.
