Steam & Excursion > Rail Union mags had good coverage after 1900, D&RG #220 explosion

Around and after 1900 the railroad union brotherhoods published magazines for their members and many were large staple bound thick issues.  This is one page from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman showing the remains of the D&RG #220 explosion in Alamosa service yard on Aug 7, 1912.  It was out of service until it received a new boiler and put back on the line in April 1913.  Its next general repair was March 1919.  It lasted to Jan 1935 when it was dismantled.
The explosion could not have happened at a better place and luckily the crew escaped injury.  The iron boilers were being replaced at that era because of such failures.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers published their own magazine.  Also there were Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman and Enginemen.  The Telegrapher Union had an interesting magazine that published write-ups of what was happening on their lines, such as reports from the Lively Brothers from D&RG Fourth and Third Divisions.

Some of these magazines are being scanned by Google Books and many of their collections are safe in the State Libraries collections.  Titles vary and date of coverage is various.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/20 03:31 by PlyWoody.

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Interesting explosion from a failure of the longitudinal lap seam of the dome course.  I wonder where the steam dome landed?  Lap seam, wrought iron boilers were not the best design.

BTW, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF) became the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen (BLF&E) when it was decided to let enginemen belong after they were promoted to engineer.  Many many engineers still worked as firemen and this allowed them to belong to only one union.  The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) never allowed firemen in their organization.

Interestingly, Sam Brown and Tom Dodds sat right next to each other on the Alamosa Division Seniority roster.  Sam was hired as a fireman on 9/20/09 and promoted to engineer 9/17/18.  Tom hired on as a fireman 10/02/09, and was promoted 9/20/18.  Sam was off the the roster on 7/1/43, while Tom kept working until 1/1/59

Thank God Brothers Dodd and Brown were off that engine, the results of a boiler explosion are horrendous to say the least.

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