Steam & Excursion > SP 4449 in Louisiana

April 1977
Westbound on the Southern Pacific in Louisiana with the Amtrak Transcontinental Steam Excursion.
4449 was headed home with this very long excursion run.
On this day it was from New Orleans to Houston.

Gary

 

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Great view from above. The rise in elevation makes for a far more interesting scene.
Bob

WHAT?
No dismal helper? All the way to Portland?
How did they survive?

​W

.

Wow, that is truly a very nice photo of that famous locomotive and Amtrak Train.  It's too bad that this goofy present management does not allow for steam operations.  They need to be replaced so badly for so many reasons.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

That was surely the trip of a LIFETIME!

​W.

 

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> WHAT?
> No dismal helper? All the way to Portland?
> How did they survive?

Move on; it's not 1975 anymore.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> WHAT?
> No dismal helper? All the way to Portland?
> How did they survive?
>
> ​W
>
> .

Think of how it must have been planning the logistics, the interchange necessary traveling on the various networks. I asked Doyle that exact question and he confirmed that was a significant factor compared to today.

Consider the many steam era people, and even facilities available throughout the country. Even into the early 80s you could round up the odd machinist or boilermaker who could shoot the rods on the 800 and 3985 - I know this as I’ve met them, they proudly share stories of the early years serving their apprenticeships in the early 70s. The Old Guard would show them the ropes when the 8444 would come to town - here kid, it’s your job now get to work. Think of the roundhouses and a few back shops with hidden treasures tucked away in old store rooms with stacks of superheated PM rod packing and any number of other parts waiting to be reclaimed or sadly discarded as unwanted old junk.

I have personally been involved with locomotives operating around the system with no diesel - there is little to actually zero tolerance to overlook the fuel/water miscalculation or to encounter the inevitable delay with no way to extend that range. To run out of fuel, water or some other high TDS foaming condition that results in near disaster. To have no alternative but to continue and press on operating the locomotive when the TDS exceeds 6000 ppm, and that water truck contractor delivers you load after load of chocolate milk water that was pumped from a pond in Pocatello the week prior is now a boiling pot of spaghetti that gradually carries over coating the superheaters. And when the engine foams, and it’s not a matter of if it will foam it’s a matter of when, that foam is doing what it does filling that head space and crunching, crackling ring segments and causing damage. It’s amazing how much the steam locomotive can endure as those broken ring segments are pulverized and beat into rounded little pieces - pieces wedge in the cylinder cocks and through some miracle, make it up through the valve and out the stack with some of them embedding in the thick layer of valve oil within the huge nozzle stand. We spent weeks repairing the engine to make it right again. With this in mind, I manage the narrow margins that are present in current operating conditions, by having a diesel along.

More stories for another day.

Ed

Posted from iPhone



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/24 04:53 by EdDickens.

By the time they got to Arizona, they had an Amtrak diesel as a helper.

Earlk Wrote:
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> By the time they got to Arizona, they had an
> Amtrak diesel as a helper.

Don't think so, as we picked up an SP diesel "helper" in Texas as a result of 1 or 2 lower/small tube failures. We got the Amtrak SDP40F "helper" upon departing LAUPT.

Yep, it was an Amtrak SDP40-whatever.  I chased it from Tucson to Phoenix and rode it from Phoenix to Yuma. No SP units in sight....

If I wasn't so lazy I'd set up my slide scanner and post a pic.

I was on the west bound Sunset, with an Amtrak 21 day rail pass, when we pulled into El Paso. 4449 and its train was sitting on the track next to us. Being a service stop, I had 20 minutes to find out what was going on. I bought tickets for New Mexico and Arizona behind 4449, then jumped back om my sleeper, packed my bag and told the car attendant I was out of here. The helper engine was the lead locomotive off of my train. I grew up in San Lorenzo, south of Oakland, California and got numerous steam locomotive cab rides to the Hayward station when I was 9 and 10 years old. Now I have my own locomotive, an EMD E8, but it still has one steam generator. I have a lot of 8mm film of the two days behind 4449 that I have put on to a DVD.

That's a very nice shot.
I know the feeling, I still have a few thousand feet of 8 and Super8 sound movies from a year on the Freedom Train to transfer to DVD , plus about 900ft or so of chasing the excursion from Los Angeles to Portland.

SVTRY Wrote:
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> I was on the west bound Sunset, with an Amtrak 21
> day rail pass, when we pulled into El Paso. 4449
> and its train was sitting on the track next to us.
> Being a service stop, I had 20 minutes to find out
> what was going on. I bought tickets for New Mexico
> and Arizona behind 4449, then jumped back om my
> sleeper, packed my bag and told the car attendant
> I was out of here. The helper engine was the lead
> locomotive off of my train. I grew up in San
> Lorenzo, south of Oakland, California and got
> numerous steam locomotive cab rides to the Hayward
> station when I was 9 and 10 years old. Now I have
> my own locomotive, an EMD E8, but it still has one
> steam generator. I have a lot of 8mm film of the
> two days behind 4449 that I have put on to a DVD.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/24 00:37 by SP4360.