Wrapped up the last 2 hours of classes 1/2 hour early giving my hard working students ( and myself) a wee bit of a head start on our big 10 day spring/Easter break.
So on the way home I stop at the gas bar where our Post Office Boxes are located inside to pick up the mail. One item, instantly recognized as a Kalmbach magazine, wrapped in plastic for shipping as usual.
I thought “hey I just got Trains, Classic came in last week, what the heck is this?”
Sitting in the driveway now, relaxed, looking forward to the break, I pick up the item and open it to see just what this is.
It is the Spring 2015 issue of Classic Trains.
‘Special Anniversary Issue’–16 Extra Pages! 15 Years!
So it was only 3 years late. Suppose it bounced around lost in the Postal Service looking for a home and finally found home.
Well that’s the good news.
The bad news is it’s all F Units!!! FT’s F3’s, FL9’s, F frick fraggin everything! Cover to cover F this F that! No steam…no steam!
What is the universe trying to tell me. F Units indeed…are you kidding me!
Bewildered, confused, disappointed, unnerved.
Well, it WAS the “Big F-Unit Issue” after all, just like there was a “Big GG1 Issue” at one time, and a “Big PA Issue,” and a “Big Interurban Issue.”
That interurban issue was a keeper, as far as I was concerned, it NEVER made it to the recycle bin or the mag rack at the gym! I still have it!
You suppose that F-Unit issue dropped out of the “Twilight Zone” just to play mind games with you? Or maybe “The Outer Limits?”
Yes, yes I do Firelock. I’m looking over my shoulder during this break, that was the opening sequence, a foreshadowing of whats to come.
Just a wee bit, many F’s did carry steam generators. But it is true that Vapor-Clarkson’s products are a poor imitation of the real thing.
I quite enjoyed the F-unit issue, especially the colour photos.
It’s not that I do not like F Units. Hated them when they first arrived. It took some time to warm up to the invaders. Maybe 40 years. Of all the issues and of all the people for this to happen to and in all the places. Must have got stuck in some postal bag that became surplus or slid behind a filing cabinet somewhere.
It’s not like we are high tech in some areas up here,
https://imgur.com/a/LhhdD
Postal service has been going down hill since the RPOs came off.
Seppburgh2 is obviously one keen fella and has risen to exalted status in my world. The man knows what hes talking about.
Firelock-- Now I am really concerned about that Chinese Satellite Magic Bus thingie coming right through my roof.
I understand that if you get hit by a Chinese Satellite you are hungry again 2 hours later.
I like the special issues. I have saved that F unit one, and the equally comprehensive E unit one. A good one on the EMD GPs. I like that GG1 issue too. They and a couple others live in a stack in my … reading room. I have honestly read each a hundred times.
Sure, I liked the special Big Boy issue too. And any special about how the mahines work. Having a senior moment, what is that vaguely bowtie shaped thing on the side of some steam locos that calculated where to set the valves? It recorded the engineer’s setting and was ther to improve efficiency. And anything about valve gear.
I received my winter issue–after notifying Classic Trains three times–a few days before my spring issue arrived. The publisher was kind enough to try each time after I let them know it had not arrived.
The famous Valve Pilot device.
This used a friction wheel acting on the rim of one of the drivers, and a specially-cut cam, to associate road speed and (reasonably) proper valve setting. There are a number of YouTube videos (some with surprisingly unrelated subjects!) that show the inner workings of the device if you want more technical information; several relatively unmolested examples have survived into preservation.
This of course proved an ‘ideal’ place to sneak in a recording of ‘speed tapes’ and a business reason to keep them recorded (it was of course associated with valve setting, and by extension economical operation) … you can guess, though, that very few overspeed examples resulted in brownies for wasting fuel and water.
As an aside, in IxD (the field of interaction design) the display used for Valve Pilot operation was a good example of the ‘right’ kind of haptics for an operating steam-locomotive ‘environment’. The device showed two needles on a common gauge face, and all that was required to get the locomotive into ‘rough’ efficiency (according to how the cam was made and how accurately it reflected the performance of its particular locomotive that day) was to adjust the cutoff to ‘match needles’. Easy to set, easy to understand complicated information at a glance, easy to figure out which way to adjust things when needed.
I humbly submit that if you were to build a Vapor-Clarkson generator to produce 130,000lb/hr steam, at the pressure and quality such a device could produce, it would be both more economical and faster-responding than any Stephensonian steam boiler has a hope of being.
Of course, it would make no more economic sense than the comparable Besler (or a generation earlier, International) generators did for power steam. You’d need engines that work well on the peculiar combination of qualities that is flash steam. If you wanted a reciprocating locomotive with direct drive, the Paget comes to mind; some reasonable compromise between the German Roosen motor locomotive (19 1001 being the famous example, and workable) and the Besler constant-torque drive (B&O W-1 being the famous example, and probably NOT quite workable as designed) is most likely the thing that ought to be built.
Or turbines, of course, likely with Bowes drive. But we don’t need to go there.
It’s kind of hard to mechanize mail sorting within the confines of an RPO or HYPO. Also, by 1967-1968 when almost all RPO’s were withdrawn, most first-class mail was going by air.
Feel a bit better now with todays Photo of the Day. Was not sure they would put one up being Good Friday but there it was.
Just look at all that. Wow. Diesels could never put on that kind of a show. Thank you Classic Trains. Good medicine.
Burlington “Banana Special”
Two Burlington Route 2-10-2s power away from Edgemont, S.Dak., with a westbound “Banana Special,” 67 reefers of bananas bound for the Pacific Northwest, in November 1948.
G. B. Taylor photo
What a sight! Gettin’ out there and gettin’ it done, movin’ those 'nanas!
Nothing like it to compare today, and that’s a fact.
How’s about a little musical interlude?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE
Personally, I like the cover of the current issue an awful lot. It may be my all time favorite.
Can’t imagine why…
Yes, steam does make quite the impression. Especially when you’re 6 years old. [;)]
Let me tell you, steam makes a pretty big impression when you’re three years old!
One of the earliest memories I have is of a steam locomotive rolling through a grade crossing, I couldn’t have been more than three and I can close my eyes and still see that “gentle giant” rolling past.
Research tells me it had to be on the New York Centrals West Shore Line, now CSX’s River Subdivision. The Central ran steam on the West Shore as late as 1956, which would have made me at least three to see steam and remember it.
I call it a gentle giant because I wasn’t frightened by it, I was fascinated!
CNR and CPR were awash in active steam in 1956…still rebuilding and outshopping them to new, the clock ticked for another 3.5 years then poof gone. I miss those night trains and the glow from the coaches, diners and sleepers…looked very warm and cozy in there plus the mystery of where were they going…and of course the whistles. Steam at night is exceptionally stunning.
Penny-- How did it come to this? Is there any chance for a future for 4070?
Oh heck yes! It was outside because they were renting the roundhouse space to the 2100 group, Horizon Rail and maybe others to raise money to restore more of the roundhouse.
In this shot you can see how 4070’s boiler was marked up for testing:
This is how the roundhouse looked in October of 2016:
And this is a pic from last summer from the MRHS web site https://www.midwestrailway.org/:
Penny–OK, thanks for that. I recall you posting those pictures before but I thought the 4070 was past it’s date with the scrapper…but if you say it is not beyond hope then that is good news indeed.
The roundhouse itself looks a bit rough! Looks can be deceiving though and I’m sure all is well.
I need to escalate my exploration activities, find that dang gold mine, so I can become a billionaire benefactor.