Passenger Trains > North Coast Limited steam heat problem

The post today by glord entitled Steam heat on the Texas Chief. showing the Texas Chief in 1974 emitting copious amounts of steam and Gene Poon's response about problems with steam heat reminded me of a very interesting account of a problem involving steam heat on the North Coast Limited.

Page 209 of The Vista Dome North Coast Limited by William R. Kuebler, Jr. includes an account, entitled "Do you want me to slow down?", of an incident on February 12, 1969. Running eastbound between Dilworth and Staples, the connection with the water baggage car froze resulting in the engine water tanks being on empty when they arrived at Staples where the train was to be watered. A few miles further and the train would have been frozen. My summary doesn't really do the story justice. Try to get a copy of the book and read this story.

ALLEN

Unrelated but...

When I had just gotten my license I used to go to Homewood, IL, a few miles up the line, in the evening to watch the southbound Panama Limited make its suburban station stop. It was a period of time where the primary power was a POOCH (GE P30CH). I think they lacked the right signalling equipment so they had an E leading. The train was still steam heated and of course, the E's steam can't go past the POOCH so they had an ex-E9B boiler car behind the power. Almost every time there would be a couple of mechanical guys from nearby Woodcrest Shop to try to fix whatever had gone wrong in the first hour of the journey (or more likely what was not fixed before they departed CUS). One night they pulled in and there must have been a broken pipe on the boiler car because steam was blasting out of it and the boilers were running full tilt trying to keep up. So there were clouds of steam and boiler exhaust. I don't know how long it took to fix because after going back to my car to watch further I finally gave up and went home. A minor anecdote but one I remember fondly.

Crazy, but the North Coast one, that's cuttin' it close!

I have always wanted that North Coast Limited book but never ran across it.

Today, I was thrust into action by this topic and located on Amazon what is described as a "like-new" copy of the book. It should be here next week.

walstib Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have always wanted that North Coast Limited book
> but never ran across it.
>
> Today, I was thrust into action by this topic and
> located on Amazon what is described as a
> "like-new" copy of the book. It should be here
> next week.

Thanks for your response. I believe you will enjoy the book very much.
ALLEN