Passenger Trains > Steam heat on the Texas Chief.

Winter had one good thing going in that steam heat would leak and blowoff it would make for a neat shot. This is the Texas Chief at Galesburg Ill in early 1974. Reason I say Texas Chief is I believe Super Chief ran with 3 units. If I remember they both were eb into Galesburg close to same time.

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I appreciate the photographic benefits, but maybe you wouldn't
say that if you'd had to go between cars on the road and try
to put back steam lines that had fallen apart!

Don't ask how I know. I sure wasn't taking pictures!

Some things are worth the effort. :P

GenePoon Wrote:
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> I appreciate the photographic benefits, but maybe
> you wouldn't
> say that if you'd had to go between cars on the
> road and try
> to put back steam lines that had fallen apart!
>
> Don't ask how I know. I sure wasn't taking
> pictures!


If you had a good fireman you could ask him to kill
the steam until you did the repairs.
When I worked at Tampa Union Station,most of the
firemen would have the steam shut off before arrival
thus making our job a little easier.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Back during the Paul Reistrup era (1974-78), I rode #4 from LA to Chillicothe, IL. The trip started off fine until we caught up with a weather system in western Kansas. The temperature dropped by 30 or more degrees. By the time we reached Kansas City, the thermometer was in the single digits. The power was pulled off to service it (SDP40F) and apparently the steam heat connection to the remainder of train was not maintained and all heat to the sleepers on the end of the train (pre-Superliner days) was lost. Try as they might, no amount of pumping steam back into the train could restore the heat. It was a cold ride on into Chillicothe and points on down the line. To add to the crew's woes, Mrs Reistrup and her children were on board. We stopped every 30 minutes or so to try to send some heat back, but nothing reached us.

It looks like No 16. 3 & 4 also ran with two units east of La Junta.

Nobody misses steam heat.

Bob



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/15 18:07 by bnsfbob.

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I appreciate the photographic benefits, but maybe
> you wouldn't
> say that if you'd had to go between cars on the
> road and try
> to put back steam lines that had fallen apart!
>
> Don't ask how I know. I sure wasn't taking
> pictures!

I bet it's as dangerous as the HEP Cables!

Gawd, I miss those days
Charlie
MP 52.7 on the BNSF Topeka Sub

Nice shot! The cold sure did make for some nice pictures of steam heat. I saw your shot and it immediately reminded me of a very cold, December 1978 trip from NYC to Springfield, MA to see some family friends. Paul

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Those same troublesome steam lines and Steam Generators provided a Hot Sauna in LA , prior to leaving out on #4 , I remember well, almost as much fun as leaning over the HOT Balky generator on a GE P30CH

Couple more steam heat shots of #16 at Fort Madison. Winter 1977 IIRC. They had a couple of extra coaches(ex-SP) at the end to handle holiday loads. Not the greatest camera at the time, but I'm glad I have these to look at. HEP was a godsend, but I still kind of miss the steam. The HEP program led to a lot of interesting passenger cars back then not making the conversion list.

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We used to drive some big cars back then, didn't we?

I called the old Cadillacs Battleships because of how big they were!