Steam & Excursion > A Mudhen On a Wednesday

A Mudhen on a Wednesday in 2009.  The reason I know it was a Wednesday, is because it was the day before TrainFestival 2009 opened in Ososso.  The cloud cover made lighting tough and I was very new to digital at the time, but a friend tipped me to shoot RAW, so I'm now able to salvage something presentable out of these.

D&RGW K-27 (AKA "Mudhen") #464 was running at Crossroads Village in Michigan, so my travelling companion and I stopped by.  (Yes, we paid for admission to the park!)  The top photo has been in my Flickr stream for a while, but since my Photoshop skills have improved somewhat since then, I've been re-working* some of my older stuff, especially ones from days with tricky lighting such as this.  Since I was diving into the external hard drive anyway, I pulled out the other two and cleaned them up.   They also have a nice-looking Ten-Wheeler there as well, which I have only ever laid eyes on inside the shop during the 2007 NMRA Convention.

* Some of my shots of WMSR 734 need to be re-done too; those are coming soon.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/22 21:59 by pennsy3750.

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Looking good!

Do I spy 'white-walled' driver tires?
Hooray!

( But, if true, that's a LOT of work, being "outside frame" locomotives...
  reaching in an around, as well as requiring multiple re-spot moves to expose 
  more of each tire edge..)

Nicely done.

Also, he's got the valve gear nicely 'hooked-up' ( i.e., shortened steam admission period, 
per stroke)  taking advantage of the superheat* in the steam that's powering the pistons.  
The fireman's job is made much easier, that way ---- since it takes much less
volume of steam to provide the power.

W.

​(* Meaning that there is more space between the more greatly 'excited' [ hotter], individual,
    steam molecules.  Superheating results in fewer numbers of 'hotter' molecules per
     'cylinder-charge', compared to the lower temps and greater weight --- of the more
     and 'colder' molecules --, per 'cylinder-charge' of 'saturated' steam' ----
     as used in non-superheated locos.
  
     'Heat-saturated' steam is the 'gas-state' of water---  which is at the same temperature as the
      boiling water contained in the vessel.  Such steam cannot be hotter than it's boiling water --
     -- unless separately heated after leaving the vessel's interior.).
     
    



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/22 09:46 by wcamp1472.

Dispite the tell tale 5 bolts on the side of the smokebox, 464 is a soak.  It was superheated in the 1920's, but when Knotts Berry Farm put the engine back into service in the 1970's they removed the superheater units (intalling "jumpers"  in the header) and installed new flue sheets removing the superheater flues.

On occasion we would paint the tires white (actually aluminum) in Chama.  I thought it looked classy to actually see the wheels hiding in between the frames.  Yes, it was a lot (too much) of work.  It was best done when the locomotive was getting driving box work and the drivers were out from under the engine.

Oh, well !!

Couldn't tell from the outside: Re: no superheaters..
(Interesting solution with 'U' pipes...)

They could be superheaters....but, not very effective ones-- LOL..

Its good that they retained the cast iron superheater 'header'...There's HOPE!

​W.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/22 11:54 by wcamp1472.

Very nice..!!