Nostalgia & History > and why don’t you like your ‘office’ ?

“OSHA's mission is to assure America's workers have safe and healthful working conditions” 
 My photo 9/1/96

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OK if you are wearing a Scott or MSA Air-Pak!
Yikes.  Worse than a tunnel.
SR2

valmont Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> “OSHA's mission is to assure America's workers
> have safe and healthful working conditions” 

However,  A railfans delight when Alcos and other locomotives throw out clouds of smoke like steam engines.  Cool photo.

Looks like the bigger locos are the source of smoke.

Common occurrence with ALCO
engines and Trubo-Lag.

Engineer too quickly increases fuel supply to cylinders, but amount of combustion air is only what’s in the cylinders at atmospheric pressure.

Remember that the best oxygen/fuel mixture, by weight, is 16:1. Thus,
with oxygen content of 20% of air
volume, and several ounces of fuel
per squirt…. there’s more carbon released than available oxygen
to make clean burning possible.

The cure is patience by the engineer, increasing fuel one step at a time. Warming up the heat-driven
turbo a few seconds between steps.

As a mechanic under Chris Mc Dermott, whiie I was at the D&H at
Colonie, NY —- early 1970’s, he
designed a device using several
pressure switches —- fed by the
intake manifold air pressure provided
by turbo boosted air pressure.

Several, increasing-pressure, operated switches, monitoring manifold inlet pressures, allowed the GE governor to admit more fuel as each switch closed, in succession,
as inlet manifold pressure increased
while accelerating.

Actual delay in starting acceleration rates was less than black-smoke
way of starting ..,, although the engineer moved the throttle to
wide-open, as he was used-to doing, the pressure switches allowed stepped fuel delivery rates, as
available oxygen increased.

The Leaner fuel mixtures produced way-hotter combustion temperatures…so, when stepping through the notches —- the tiny fuel delays made 3,000 F combustion temps at each step: two through eight. By 7&8, there was negligible
delay—- cylinder air pressures were
much higher than the ‘black-smoke’
days.

Fuel rates increased at each step, according to increased manifold
pressure. Manifold pressure only increases as engine RPMs increase.

Hotter combustion temperatures
increased engine RPMs at a faster rate than the black-smoke conditions.

McDermott’s pressure switches arrangement actually shortened
the time to Maximum engine RPMs,
way quicker than black-smoke
days.

Engineers didn’t notice a marked increase in performance…
only there were no more black- smoke days.

When all 4 Alco PAs were rebuilt
at Morrison-Knudsen, their prime
movers were changed from
16-cylinder ‘244 engines, to
12-cylinder ‘251 engines’,
delivering over 2500 hp.

McDermott supervised the rebuilding
program for the D&H.

W.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/25 08:13 by wcamp1472.

The Alcos are neat, but I'm more interested in what's going on on the back porch of that switcher.  Are those trees planted in buckets?   Tree branches mounted in the flag holders?  And the big plastic strip wound around the handrails reminds me of modern crews who don't want their trains photographed, hanging toilet paper off the handrails, windowsills, etc.  Interesting scene to say the least!

Andy

And or James Cagney's palm tree in the movie Mister Roberts.

AndyBrown Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Alcos are neat, but I'm more interested in
> what's going on on the back porch of that
> switcher.  Are those trees planted in buckets? 
>  Tree branches mounted in the flag holders?  And
> the big plastic strip wound around the handrails
> reminds me of modern crews who don't want their
> trains photographed, hanging toilet paper off the
> handrails, windowsills, etc.  Interesting scene
> to say the least!
>
> Andy

The poster gives no location.
I might be wrong but the impression it makes on me is of Commercial Ave. yard in South Chicago.
The 506-516 were often the power for the South Chicago Transfer in that era.
Two 600's were assigned to the Boat Jobs.

The South Chicago Transfer was a 12 hour job whether the work demanded it or not.  
On duty at 7:59 am.
Every time eating scam imaginable was employed to make the 12 hours.
Arranging to get blocked in the Clearing East Departure yard by a CR Elkhart or CSXT Garrett crew looking to
make Initial Terminal Delay penalty pay, Once moving, the transfer never exceeded 10 mph.  Once in Commercial Yard
maintaining radio silence until hearing a CR train coming to use the CR connection and then asking for the signal at the
east end of Commercial to do some switching knowing that the then single track connection would be occupied by the CR train.
And perhaps in the case of the photo, stay in the clear while the Boat Job made its moves.

The actual purpose of the Transfer was to deliver cars to Commercial Ave. for the Chicago Short Line, EJ&E, Chicago Rail Link
and CSS&SB who all converged on Commercial Ave. during the day.  The Transfer would then gather up the deliveries from the 
above roads and bring them back to Clearing.  Before leaving Commercial it would also deliver cars to whatever industries in the
South Chicago "District" that had not been yet run off.

Any additional work demanded of the crew would end up with them dying in Commercial Ave. yard.

Every evening after about 6:30 pm every move on the BRC from Clearing to Pullman Jct. had to be made with the South Chicago Transfer in 
mind.  Like clockwork, always leaving Commercial Ave. with the minimum amount of time to work whether 20 cars or 120 cars.  Many times
with 100+ cars on the return trip it was under powered, so a stop at 80th St. for an NS intermodal or at Belt Jct. for a Metra would be the death
of it.  So in actuality the train became the "199" of the BRC.  A path had to be kept clear so it could leave Commercial Ave. and Clear signals
displayed so it didn't stall somewhere.

All the above a sad commentary on the railroad.  Management interest in straightening out the mess was zero.  I often assumed that was because
many of the management team still carried big seniority in the craft and the So.Chgo. job would be their landing spot when their incompetence was 
discovered.

The true demands of the job were visible every time the regular engineer went on vacation and engineer RLJ went on the job.  RL didn't want to spend
his entire life on the railroad.  He would be back to Clearing in 8 hours.

The Boat Jobs were another tale.  Powder River coal was the epitome of the efficient unit train.   Engines and cars in one block from mine to power plant 
and back.  That until a train of coal was destined to KCBX aka at one time as Rail-To-Water.  A BN or UP crew would deliver a loaded coal train
to Commercial Ave. and yard it there, doubling or tripling over on the short tracks.  Then a BRC "Boat Job" would be called to take the coal to 
KCBX which was a couple miles away from Commercial Ave.  When unloaded another Boat Job would be called to bring the empties back up
to Commercial.  When the empties were all in Commercial the BN or UP would send a Cicero or Proviso crew to Commercial to double it all
back up and go home.

The Proviso crews had learned well from the BRC crews.  Hours spent in the taxi from Proviso to Clearing.  Hanging around
Clearing getting their power out of the Diesel Shop,  Neither UP or BRC management would give advance info to the dispatcher office regarding crew names,
time on duty, CSXT Z number, power, UP symbol etc.  After five or six hours Proviso would call the BRC management looking for the coal train.  Of course the first
person management asked was the DS who knew less about the train than the manager.

Anyway, as I said in the beginning, this picture may or may not be from Commercial Ave. but these were the memories it brought back to me.
Perhaps everyone learned a bit about big city railroading.

Edit:  All that stuff outside the cab is probably their feed bags for the day..
I see a cooler and what looks like card board boxes.
The five gallon bucket may have ice.

Also, the Digicon dispatching equipment had the ability to show train symbols in different color.
A silver train symbol was used by some Class Ones to indicate a super hot train like a 199.
One wag on the BRC would give the northbound South Chicago job a silver symbol.
He would say that the train had hot shut down cars from the Cozzi scrap yard.

 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/25 14:07 by Englewood.

Yes, great memories about the BRC South Chicago job.  One of the highlights of working 2nd trick at 75th Street Tower
on the B&OCT in the 70's.  We usually had a panic call from the BRC dispatcher when it was within an hour away.
I'm surprised the relief engineer who got the train back to Clearing in 8 hours wasn't knocked down to switchman.
On July 4th of 2023 I posted a story in Nostalgia & History here on Trainorders about the SC job on July 4, 1973.

The C&NW crews were in good company on the BRC.  I had a friend who was a hostler at Proviso, and the ultimate
job was running lite to the C&NW Irondale Yard in South Chicago, south of Wisconsin Steel.  They brought fresh power
to the yard and returned with the old to Proviso.  That was a 12 hour move.  Number of cars handled: 0.