Jersey Central 0-6-0 113 and Reading & Northern 425 doubleheaded three Santa Claus Specials between Minersville and West Cressona today. The Reading chime whistle on 425 and the Jersey Central chime whistle on 113 certainly sounded good!
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My 10 year old John and watched the 11am train and rode the 1pm.
They did a great job managing operations, from what I saw, in Minersville. Upon arrive at the station, they had to uncouple the locomotives and pull them forward to clear the road. The mess of cars and people were at times almost crushing.
When the 1pm train got to Cressona, they pulled 113 off the train. Here it passes 425, which has pulled into a siding. 425 then took the train back to Minersville. At the time, on train, there were stories about a broken bolt or other problem. This evening, the rumor was they were having problems maintaining steam. They might have a steep learning curve with this locomotive!
Apparently, again, according to rumor, at one point, pressured dropped to the point they couldn't run the injectors. I did see them putting wood on the engine in Minersville. I assume if you can't run the injectors and the water gets to low, you would drop the fire? Hotwater, Rich?
#425 put on a real show pulling upgrade out of Cressona by itself. In a day harking back to my youth when windows and dutch doors were open, a friendly car attendant allowed John and I to spend some time in the front vestibule right behind the tender. 425's pull was loud and wonderful! John spent much of the drive home (almost three hours) in the back seat going "chug, chug, chug." His first double header and hardest pull he has seen (well, perhaps equal to 765's first pull over the Curve :-).
All in all, a great day! To make it just a bit more interesting, on the way home, we heard an ad for Strasburg RR Christmas trains on an FM radio station that was playing Christmas songs.
Cheers,
Bob
How cool! Thanks for posting!
George
Has all the boiler lagging been re-installed? It appears that there are a lot of exposed bolts and rivets along the firebox and boiler. It was very cold yesterday, well below freezing. If my suspicion is correct then I'd surmise that they're losing too much heat/steam through the lack of insulation. You might get away with that in warm weather but heat transfer on a cold day can be significant enough to all but stop steam generation. I've worked with boilers and funny things happen when there is insufficient insulation, particularly when the temp goes below 32 degrees. Then again, I could be wrong.
We got there late and were disappointed to see the 113 had been cut off on the return trip. That was offset by hearing 425 working so hard coming back and that awesome whistle.
113 indeed does not have any insulation or jacketing at this time. Last I heard (on another forum) that's a project for spring/summer 2014.
In the video I saw of the doubleheader (on Facebook) there appeared to be a lot of steam coming out from the area of the steam chest. I wonder if they didn't have a steam leak somewhere.
Great photos, thanks guys. 
From what I heard from people who are in the group who runs 113, they had trouble maintaining steam because they had trouble with the coal (running pure anthracite). 113 was removed in Cressona on the 2nd trip, but was okay to go home on the third trip, as they had been adding wood from the woods to the fire. Unfortunately, when they arrived in Minersville, they were down to 50psi.
Until someone can prove otherwise I think I'll stand by my heat loss theory. Without insulation you've got a gigantic heat sink. Couple that with a drop in ambient temperature of -50 degrees from the previous time it was used the loss in btu's adds up pretty quickly, particularly with the enthalpy of a cold/dry day just sucking the heat out of that boiler. I'll even guess they barely had the throttle cracked on the last trip back to keep the cylinders lubricated and still lost pressure.
Any mechanical engineers care to tackle this?
Until someone can prove otherwise I think I'll stand by my heat loss theory. Without insulation you've got a gigantic heat sink. Couple that with a drop in ambient temperature of -50 degrees from the previous time it was used the loss in btu's adds up pretty quickly, particularly with the enthalpy of a cold/dry day just sucking the heat out of that boiler. I'll even guess they barely had the throttle cracked on the last trip back to keep the cylinders lubricated and still lost pressure.
Any mechanical engineers care to tackle this?
I don't think any Mechanical Engineers will be required, is it was the coal. They are trying to burn pure anthracite and apparently had some issues with the coal. Maybe the coal was old, maybe they got the fire too thick, or…………….whatever. Just because there was no lagging & jacketing would NOT cause a steam locomotive to "fail to make steam pressure".
Brakemen stood on platforms there to couple and uncouple cars. No. 113 has those platforms by her front and rear couplers. See the photos above. On No. 425, tender platforms have been replaced by vertical shields. Generally, freight locomotives had platforms by their pilot couplers. Passenger locomotives (like 425) didn't.
These plaforms (front and rear) were painted yellow on Reading T-1's that headed the renowned Iron Horse Rambles. They are prominent in these photos of my Lionel T-1 (customized as No. 2124 by Reading Steam Guru and Wowak).
Those "platforms" are called "foot boards."
Very nice pictures, Thanks for sharing.
How about some more photos?
Normally I would be rather upset at someone walking into my shot, but in this case I'll make an exception!
This was when Santa flagged down the train to ride into Minersville, before the excursions began for the day.
More excellent photos, thanks Michael.
Until someone can prove otherwise I think I'll stand by my heat loss theory. Without insulation you've got a gigantic heat sink. Couple that with a drop in ambient temperature of -50 degrees from the previous time it was used the loss in btu's adds up pretty quickly, particularly with the enthalpy of a cold/dry day just sucking the heat out of that boiler. I'll even guess they barely had the throttle cracked on the last trip back to keep the cylinders lubricated and still lost pressure.
Any mechanical engineers care to tackle this?
I don't think any Mechanical Engineers will be required, is it was the coal. They are trying to burn pure anthracite and apparently had some issues with the coal. Maybe the coal was old, maybe they got the fire too thick, or…………….whatever. Just because there was no lagging & jacketing would NOT cause a steam locomotive to "fail to make steam pressure".
The lack of the jacket didn't help things, but in this case Hotwater is correct. If there wasn't any problem with the fuel, she wouldn't have had a problem keeping steam even in the cold weather. That's the beautiful thing about steam, with a hot enough fire you can get steam no matter the temp. Poor fuel equals poor fire which equals poor temps which equals poor steam generation. And yes, I am a ME, and I would of never made it through my thermodynamics class if I hadn't been trying to figure out how I could apply everything to steam locomotives (The professor liked talking about climate control systems.).
1225 just ran a series of very successful Polar Express trips - with no jacketing on the boiler. The lack of jacketing has a miniscule effect on the ability of the boiler to make steam. Besides, on those short, low speed runs with that little train, the boiler was not being taxed anywhere near its maximum capacity.
If they were down to only 50 pounds of steam at one point, they had a serious problem with the coal or an inexperienced fireman who was having a very bad day.
1225 just ran a series of very successful Polar Express trips - with no jacketing on the boiler. The lack of jacketing has a miniscule effect on the ability of the boiler to make steam. Besides, on those short, low speed runs with that little train, the boiler was not being taxed anywhere near its maximum capacity.
No jacketing yes, but she did have her lagging installed already as I'm sure you're well aware.
The only place I could see a lack of insulation having some effect would be the cylinders when stopped, would cool off faster than if they were insulated, but that's what we have cylinder cocks for.
ahmmmm, I just boiled some water on the stove for instant coffee. The water boiled, and I did not have lagging on my pan! Sorry, could not resist.
I'm sure the issue was the anthracite they were burning.
I'm sure the issue was the anthracite they were burning.
I think the operative phrase here would be "Trying to burn"!
Has all the boiler lagging been re-installed? It appears that there are a lot of exposed bolts and rivets along the firebox and boiler. It was very cold yesterday, well below freezing. If my suspicion is correct then I'd surmise that they're losing too much heat/steam through the lack of insulation. You might get away with that in warm weather but heat transfer on a cold day can be significant enough to all but stop steam generation. I've worked with boilers and funny things happen when there is insufficient insulation, particularly when the temp goes below 32 degrees. Then again, I could be wrong.
We got there late and were disappointed to see the 113 had been cut off on the return trip. That was offset by hearing 425 working so hard coming back and that awesome whistle.
" Then again, I could be wrong. "
It appears this is the case. I was throwing it out for discussion. In my work I've experienced the significant effect that a lack of insulation can have on steam systems, albeit on a smaller scale. Thermodynamics wasn't my strongest subject, obviously. I was trying to find some of my old textbooks and/or find equations to see if I could quantify it somehow. It now appears that changing majors was the right thing to do. I'm glad others with more experience weighed in.
Has all the boiler lagging been re-installed? It appears that there are a lot of exposed bolts and rivets along the firebox and boiler. It was very cold yesterday, well below freezing. If my suspicion is correct then I'd surmise that they're losing too much heat/steam through the lack of insulation. You might get away with that in warm weather but heat transfer on a cold day can be significant enough to all but stop steam generation. I've worked with boilers and funny things happen when there is insufficient insulation, particularly when the temp goes below 32 degrees. Then again, I could be wrong.
We got there late and were disappointed to see the 113 had been cut off on the return trip. That was offset by hearing 425 working so hard coming back and that awesome whistle.
" Then again, I could be wrong. "
It appears this is the case. I was throwing it out for discussion. In my work I've experienced the significant effect that a lack of insulation can have on steam systems, albeit on a smaller scale. Thermodynamics wasn't my strongest subject, obviously. I was trying to find some of my old textbooks and/or find equations to see if I could quantify it somehow. It now appears that changing majors was the right thing to do. I'm glad others with more experience weighed in.
Yes, my experience has also been that on smaller scales, it does make a big difference. But on something that size, with the kind of fire it should have, steam generation shouldn't be an issue.
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