Nostalgia & History > A Theory Concerning

In casual council with a fellow TO member over coffee one evening not long ago, the observation was made that posts of Southern Pacific GS-4 4449 not only garner large numbers of hits (views), but as a rule a statistically significant increase in the number of comments, including corrections to any information put forth. It was this discussion which prompted my notion that with nothing more than a direction, a location, and what appears in the train number boards, the collected membership could probably supply all of the other pertinent details of the date, the trip, the name it was given (by whoever names these things), and a myriad of details too vast in scope for one mind to conceive of let alone enumerate.
Now as luck would have it, I happen to have what I think is an appropriate test photo, so in a completely non-empirical, but hopefully entertaining and edifying exercise, I shall attempt to prove (with the generous aid of all who might possess what criminologists call guilty knowledge) my little theory.
What’s given: Below is an image of “The Great One” in flight as the Extra 4449 East just around the corner from Bryn Mawr approaching the Redlands X-Overs on the Yuma Sub. The fact that it is running as an extra under its own number is significant, for if I’m right, this has only happened once since its resurrection and restoration.
To all who choose to participate, I thank you and trust we all have a good time seeing if my theory is true.

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Okay, I'll start. It's 1986 and this is the Gold Coast Flyer, aka the Disney Daylight, for the filming of "Tough Guys" on Kaiser's Eagle Mountain Railroad.

The give away is the enlarged hand-rails atop the combine.

Some one else can fill in the rest of the details

What I find amazing is how the railfan experts create their own versions of history. I worked with a lot of the old heads,mostly 40 and 41 men who ran these engines everyday and the Lima GS series engines were not well liked. They were considered poor performers. Apparently they steamed poorly and had a mushy response. Again, I'm only the messenger. This is not intended to take away from the wonderful work of the bunch in Portland who have dedicated their lives to the 4449 and keep it going for all of us to enjoy.

It looks to me as though MacBeau's theory got proved, in 32 minutes, and far too late at night (or early in the morning) for anyone to be up.

And here I thought Wayne Gretzky was a foamer!

Heck, I thought they were discussing Jackie Gleason !

wharfrat Wrote:
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> I worked with a lot of the old heads, mostly 40 and 41 men
> who ran these engines everyday and the Lima GS
> series engines were not well liked. They were
> considered poor performers. Apparently they
> steamed poorly and had a mushy response.

I have to agree with wharfrat. I know most of the old heads I worked with preferred the MT class 4300 series to the 4400s. I made sure that when I worked with an old head I asked them this question as I really liked the looks of the 4300s myself. The said they were easier to fire and were an all around much better engine. I wouldn't know as I've only ridden the 4449 a couple of times at high speed so I can't compare the two classes, unfortunately. I did know that the 4449 was very loud and kind of rough riding at 70 mph when I rode it betwee Fresno and Bakersfield in 1984. But I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the track condition at the time. I only wish I could have ridden a 4300 to compare the two. But I know I'm not alone in that circumstance.

JDE

Had this been posted on the Steam Board you would have found out what the crew had for breakfast.

Ok, I freely admit it was too good to pass up to post what I know of the image. Call if the product of all of the great and useless knowledge accumalted so far...

But as to the time of night? Hey, not everyone lives and works a 9 to 5 job.

Pullman Wrote:
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> it was too good to pass up
>
> But as to the time of night? Hey, not everyone
> lives and works a 9 to 5 job.

Pullman:
No apologizes necessary, and as BobB so aptly points out, you came through in just 32 minutes—nice to know I'm not the only summer time insomniac around. But what both wharfrat and steamjockey did was great too, they took on the popular mythology that has built up around not just that particular engine, but the class as a whole—I couldn’t have asked for more. Thank you one and all for your participation.
–Mac

There is similar discussion in the current SP H&TS Trainline issue. Most of the many pages are devoted to the Fresno area, late steam, some transition diesels comments and lots of interesting photos.

Steamjocky Wrote:
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> They said they were easier to fire and were an all
> around much better engine.

I heard the same thing about firing the GS's from Don Lathom and Beany Sitker one afternoon when we were laying over at the Indio Towers. I had been listening to Don and Beany talking about a couple of Engineers they had fired for and how difficult they had been to work with. It seems from time to time they would get an engine that was hard to keep hot because of some kind of a boiler problem and they needed the Engineer to help them cope with it by making sure that they were working some throttle as much as possible to keep a minimum draft going through the firebox.

Evidently, these two guys refused to co-operate. For instance, if they were running across the flats, when the speed of their train creeped up a little, instead of getting a little air under the train and letting the set drag their speed down while working a little throttle to supply a decent draft, they would just close the throttle and let the natural drag on the train slow them down (wonder what the ride in the caboose was like?)

I wish I could remember the whole conversation and all the details because I remember asking them about cranking up the blower to get the draft they needed to keep it hot.

I believe Beany made the comment that when the engine isn't steaming properly to begin with, the blowers could not produce enough draft to run the fire at a level high enough to force it to steam. He also made a comment that he preferred to run the engines instead of firing them.

Should've taken notes all the hours we spent at that place. Lost a lot of great history by not paying closer attention.

stivmac Wrote:
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> And here I thought Wayne Gretzky was a foamer!

This thread came up today as one of the "Posts From The Past" and I'm surprised that the term "Foamer" was around in 2006! I thought it only recently came out after that trainandhawksfan guy put out his video of the UP 1989 in 2012.