Steam & Excursion > The Beginning And The Terrible End Of Western Pacific #325!

Not all steam locomotives led a charmed life as we see her with Western Pacific 2-8-2 #325.

This beautiful Mike was turned out by ALCO in March 1924 as part of a 5-engine order by the WP.  This was the first set of engines built for the WP with boosters installed.  These engines also sported the Davis engine truck for their first few years as we see in the builder's photo.

First assigned to the Portola to Winnemucca run, #325 later worked West out of Portola. It was on this run that #325 met her fate.

On November 11, 1937, while pulling the Scenic Limited,  #325 hit a rock slide near Tunnel 9 in the Feather River Canyon at Mile Post 236.5.  Both engineer and fireman lost their lives in the wreck.  The engine was taken to Sacramento where it stayed in the wrecked condition we see here until finally being disposed of in 1939.

The second photo shows the wreck being picked up near the scene of the wreck.  From the looks of the damage to the smokebox and the boiler being off her frame, it wouild appear she may have suffered from a boiler explosion as part of this wreck.

The bottom photo shows a group of famous California Railfans inspecting the remains of #325 in May 1938.  On top of the boiler from left to right are Jim Boynton, Wil Whitakker, and Bert Ward.  On the ground is Guy Dunscomb.

Such was the sad end of a once beautiful locomotive.


Martin



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/15 05:11 by LoggerHogger.

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Ouch!

The condition of the wreck suggests that in addition to hitting the rockslide, the boiler also exploded.  Perhaps running with low water when the accident occurred?

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

Yes, it does appear the boiler exploded as well.

Martin

I think that's a scanner artifact. 

I just saw the scanner glitch.  But the boiler did explode.  You can see that from the other photos I have of the engine after the wreck, both as she was being retrieved in the Canyon and back a Sacramento.


Martin

Well don't leave us hanging Martin, post them.

She sure was a good looking engine in the builder's photo.  Reminds me of another "dumb question" I have been meaning to ask.  Why do some locomotives seem to have extended portions of their valve cylinders, slightly longer than the piston cylinders?

Just speculation but if the locomotive derailed to a downward angle, the water would move to the forward part of the boiler and uncover the crown sheet.  If the fire were not attended to with the crown sheet uncovered, an explosion would be likely.

I wonder how frequently something like that would really happen.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

MaryMcPherson Wrote:
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> Just speculation but if the locomotive derailed to
> a downward angle, the water would move to the
> forward part of the boiler and uncover the crown
> sheet.  If the fire were not attended to with the
> crown sheet uncovered, an explosion would be
> likely.
>
> I wonder how frequently something like that would
> really happen.

Highly unlikely.  Derailment and sudden stop would (a) shut off flow of exhaust, therby killing the draft, and (b) open up so much of the grate to the admission of cold air that the firebox temperature would immediately drop below a temperature which would threaten the bare steel.

-John

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> Well don't leave us hanging Martin, post them.

I'm unconvinced there was a boiler explosion. The backhead is in fine shape, there is no distortion around the opening to the firebox, the only radial distortion I see (other than the scanner artifact) is a dent in the front part of the boiler. A dent could be the result of running into a rock.

It is true the smokebox is torn off, and it looks like the feed pipes to the cylinders went with it, along with the cylinders themselves. That seems more like a frame crack that separated the front and back of the engine right about at the front wall of the boiler.

Would it be usual for a boiler explosion to not damage anything other than the front tube sheet? I would have expected the boiler side to be ripped open or the backhead blown off.

lwilton Wrote:
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>
> Would it be usual for a boiler explosion to not
> damage anything other than the front tube sheet? I
> would have expected the boiler side to be ripped
> open or the backhead blown off.

In the 19th century boiler failures were almost always a rupture of the longitudinal side seam, as you describe.  This was an inherent design flaw of the era, that was corrected by outlawing longitudinal lap seams.  The crown bar fireboxes of the era were less prone to failure than the radial fireboxes of the 20th century, and backhead failure has never been common.

Failure of the front tube sheet is pretty much unheard of, though pictures of boiler explosions might lead you the think otherwise since a failure of a radial firebox crownsheet will frequently blast the superheater elements out the front end, making it appear that the disemboweled front sheet has failed, when it hasn't.

Another source of failure is separation of the mudring from the bottom of the waterlegs surrounding the firebox.  This is a maintenance issue, from overheating of the steel and erosion of the metal - improper water treatment and boiler washing.

-John

Explosion would have bowed the metal out. The metal appears to have been ripped on a vertical axis. Makes me wonder if someone placed a hook to the wrong place retrieving the locomotive.

What we need is someone to timetravel and take more pictures. Maybe even some video of the derailment.

Fred in Wichita

ATSF93 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Explosion would have bowed the metal out. The
> metal appears to have been ripped on a vertical
> axis. Makes me wonder if someone placed a hook to
> the wrong place retrieving the locomotive.
>
> What we need is someone to timetravel and take
> more pictures. Maybe even some video of the
> derailment.
>
> Fred in Wichita

A crownsheet failure causes the interior of the firebox to collapse downward, resulting in the back end of the boiler to rocket skyward from the frame, to which it is only attached by sliding expansion pads and tearing the front end loose from the cylinder saddle to which it is securely bolted,  The Smokebox will rip vertically, as seen here, or will rip more horizontally, leaving the bottom of the Smokebox still on the saddle.  The damage seen in consistent with a crownsheet failure.  The boiler is usually found  many hundreds of feet down the track ahead of the point of the explosion, and the dent probably occurred when it hit ground.

The real puzzle is why the boiler would have exploded from a rockslide collision.

There was a really bad movie that 20th Century Fox put out starring Cheryl Ladd in 1989
called Millennium.  People from the future came into the past (present) and brought back
doomed passengers from airplanes pending disaster.

The movie would've been much better had it been railrans bringing back steam engines
destined for the scrapper.

Beautiful locomotive - such a shame so few WP engines were saved - 3 if I recall.

/Mitch

I have added one of my photos of the wreck being picked up at the wreck site in the Feather River Canyon.  This shot lends credence to the boiler explosion theory.


Martin

Actually, five Western Pacific steam locomotives are still around - 26 (2-8-0), 94 (4-6-0), 164 & 165 (0-6-0) & 334 (2-8-2).

S_W

This is the accident report:

http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+2228)

It doesn't mention the boiler exploding, but once you read the report, you will know why it did.

There is also a sizable dent in the firebox that matches up pretty closely to the location of the other dent near the front....

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