Steam & Excursion > With This Much Power Parked There Must Be A Recession Going On!

We don't have a date for this photo unfortunately. However the presence of a line of parked steam power in the Southern Pacific yard makes it appear that the economy must be slow.

The beautiful GS-4 Class Daylight and her passenger train definitely put some hope in this scene.

Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/17 02:33 by LoggerHogger.

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Or had SP just taken delivery on a bunch more diesels?

This appears to be near the San Jose(Ca)roundhouse. This might be on a Sunday, with locomotives for assigned to commute service standing by for use the next morning.

S_W

Stevo_Weimario Wrote:
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> This appears to be near the San
> Jose(Ca)roundhouse. This might be on a Sunday,
> with locomotives for assigned to commute service
> standing by for use the next morning.
>
> S_W

Correct

So steam engines in active commuter service would be allowed to go cold over the weekend?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that, but somehow I was.

march_hare Wrote:
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> So steam engines in active commuter service would
> be allowed to go cold over the weekend?
>
> I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that, but
> somehow I was.

I really doubt that they allow them to "go cold". Being oil fired, one or two Hostelers or Hosteler Helpers, could maintain a VERY small spot fire in each and ever locomotive, and periodically check boiler water levels, ever hour or so. Thus, the bunker C fuel in the tender does not get cold and solid, as the steam heat coils within the tender oil bunker stay hot.

How late did the Coast Daylight run with steam?

ts1457 Wrote:
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> How late did the Coast Daylight run with steam?


1955

HotWater Wrote:
>
> I really doubt that they allow them to "go cold".
> Being oil fired, one or two Hostelers or Hosteler
> Helpers, could maintain a VERY small spot fire in
> each and ever locomotive, and periodically check
> boiler water levels, ever hour or so. Thus, the
> bunker C fuel in the tender does not get cold and
> solid, as the steam heat coils within the tender
> oil bunker stay hot.

Thanks, I hadn't even thought about the fuel going cold. East coast RRs didn't have to worry about that, I guess.

march_hare Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> HotWater Wrote:
> >
> > I really doubt that they allow them to "go
> cold".
> > Being oil fired, one or two Hostelers or
> Hosteler
> > Helpers, could maintain a VERY small spot fire
> in
> > each and ever locomotive, and periodically
> check
> > boiler water levels, ever hour or so. Thus, the
> > bunker C fuel in the tender does not get cold
> and
> > solid, as the steam heat coils within the
> tender
> > oil bunker stay hot.
>
> Thanks, I hadn't even thought about the fuel going
> cold. East coast RRs didn't have to worry about
> that, I guess.


No. If the coal gets "cold" it's no big deal, but the fires are always banked, and someone regularly check the boiler water level. That's how the commuter steam locomotives on the CNJ were handled.

I agree its San Jose. The PG&E gas storage tank gives it away. Those steamers look like commute power. That's how they lined up the diesels too. You would go out, climb up, pull the bell rope and the tower would line you east to the depot. The bell rope was still in use into the 80s I think.
It was One pull to go from RH to depot.
Two pulls from RH to College Park
Three pulls when you needed switching room in the RH and had to foul the west main. Modern Railroading


Nudge

No sign of heat or haze at the stacks and no vapor anywhere? Those puppies sure look cold.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

WP-M2051 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ts1457 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How late did the Coast Daylight run with steam?
>
>
> 1955

January 1955 to be exact. Sad Sam (mail train) I believe ran with steam into 1956.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/17 14:37 by ATSF3751.

MaryMcPherson Wrote:
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> No sign of heat or haze at the stacks and no vapor
> anywhere? Those puppies sure look cold.

Maybe it's a warn/hot day. When we used to display 4449, we would have an extremely small spot fire, with all the appliances shut off, even the blower. With the ever so slight convection of air through the firebox, there would be nothing exiting the stack (you could even place your hand over stack, and hold it there).

Could only scan the icon size of this photo. Same location about 3 years later.

Ed



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/17 16:52 by Auburn_Ed.

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Soon after in, a good number of those 4-8-2's that you see would be replaced with 4-8-4's, to the general lament of the engineers.

EO

Note that there is a large insulated (lagged and jacketed) pipeline attached to the power/phone poles, about 7' off the ground, alongside the Ready Track. This has got to be a steam line. S.P. steam locomotives were equipped with a pipe manifold located above the cylinder valve chamber on the fireman's side. These could supply an external source of steam - say from a hose connected to the steam pipeline - to run the blower and atomizer. This could have been the fallback method of raising steam if a Ready Track locomotive accidentally was allowed to cool down below about 20psi.

We used the same piping manifold to light off S.P. 2472 using large volumes of compressed air. Fuel Oil doesn't atomize especially well on cold compressed air, but it works OK. Once 20psi is raised on the boiler (say after 4+ hours), the noisy portable air compressor is shut down, and the blower and atomizer switched over to boiler-generated steam. Steam atomizes the oil much better than compressed air.

S.P. steam locomotives also had a 2" (IIRC) pipe & shutoff valve on the auxiliary dome hatch cover (or main steam dome hatch cover on older power) with a steam-heat (?) fitting on the end. This could be connected to an overhead steam line in the roundhouse, or on many roundhouse "garden tracks", to supply house steam to keep everything hot.

- Doug Debs