I've Been Working on the Railroad

We had a little incident last Saturday, a derailment. Now that isn't all that uncommon for the little train, it is so small it can pop off. In fact we gathered up about 6 guys and lifter her back on, anyway the derailment wasn't the biggest concern, it was where. Little No. 8 came off on the bridge, towards the side with no railing or walk way. This was a situation that needed to be rectified and so that is where most of my work has been for the last 2 days.



What we did is grab some 10 foot switch ties and insert them in between the existing ties in the road bed. Some of them we were able to sling into place with the man lift, others were just put in by hand. We carried them over the bridge and slid them down the side of the embankment until the ends would slip in between.

Jack positioning a tie:


Sometimes we could then grunt them in and slide them trough but other times we had to lift the rails in order to make room.

Pulling spikes:


Lifting the Rail, notice the spike driven underneath:


When it was out over the water we tied a chain around the far end, slipped the near end in and then lifted up the back of the tie by hand with the chain. This is a tie jammed in between the rail and the bridge supports. We had to lift rail for this one.




Once in place we spiked them down.




Jack, Gean and I came back and finished it up yesterday. Set the last 4 ties hanging out over the water and put a deck on it. We will put a guard rail later.



This is the main reason for all of the work No.12



It was time for her shakedown cruse before starting an active summer. I got to go along. They had me working the switches, helping with the fueling and sanding the flues. The first 2 are self explanatory but the last one is sort of different. When they get her working hard up a grade you pour a gallon of sand into the firebox vent. The draft from the fire sucks it through the boiler tubes and out the stack. The purpose is to sand blast soot deposits.

This is the hill I sanded on:



Far as we know this is the steepest tourist railroad in operation still using steam, this grade is as bad a 6%.

The rest of what I did on No.2 will have to be told in person. Lets just just say the words "boyhood dream" and "plausible denyability" are both appropriate. After an 11 hour day we put her to bed. You can hear what the weariness and soot have done to my voice, but not much else.