1880 train in the Black Hills of SD

I just went on that train a couple of weeks. It was a nice ride. I wish they had an open gondola type of car on the train like the Georgetown loop RR. John

ironlake2 posted:

The two 2-6-2 engines can only handle 3 cars on the hill so they get used on light passenger days.  If you want to hear a steam engine  bark VERY loud ride this train. 

Maybe they have changed the load ratings.  I was there in the fall of 2014, and they had the 104 (2-6-2T) with four cars.  The next day, they had to add a car, so they fired up the 2-6-6-2.  The sound--and speed--on that 6% grade out of Hill City is something you have to see in person.  No video will ever come close to describing that sound.  Simply incredible.

Kevin

I have the audiophile record of 765 and it is good but Not anything like this 1880 train working 7 full loaded passenger cars.  It is the loudest steam bark I have ever heard and a display of brute power.  Also the blast out of the mallet is 4 per rev of driver rev, even if the drivers are out of sync.  So you get the blast of all 4 cylinders in 4 blasts.  The rear drivers blast to the front drivers and then come out the stack combined.  When the train leaves keystone it is an instant grade, to get started and a mallet doesn't get power to the front drivers until the rear drivers have exhausted once.  They put the engine in simple (high pressure steam to all 4 cylinders at once) to start the train and that is also a blast.  I doubt you will hear anymore dimenstration of steam power until you hear this steam train in the hills.  Also they tell us the 6% grade is the steepest on any railroad in the us.  Can anybody guess what the load would be of 7 heavyweight cars with 560 adults plus the cars them selves would be.  Then the weight of the load has to increase on the grade.  What amt of tractive effort would the mallet need for the hill.

Another thing the engineer told me is the water in the hills is so poor they have to reflue every 3 years.  The engine gets run 6 days a week in the busy summer season.  He said they are just finishing a reverse osmosis  water system to use in the engines to save on them.  I wonder if any other steam railroad does this.  Also the engine uses oil for the fire as in a national forest the fire danger is too high with coat cinders spewing out the stack.

ironlake2 posted:

I have the audiophile record of 765 and it is good but Not anything like this 1880 train working 7 full loaded passenger cars.  It is the loudest steam bark I have ever heard and a display of brute power.  Also the blast out of the mallet is 4 per rev of driver rev, even if the drivers are out of sync.  So you get the blast of all 4 cylinders in 4 blasts.  The rear drivers blast to the front drivers and then come out the stack combined.  When the train leaves keystone it is an instant grade, to get started and a mallet doesn't get power to the front drivers until the rear drivers have exhausted once.  They put the engine in simple (high pressure steam to all 4 cylinders at once) to start the train and that is also a blast.  I doubt you will hear anymore dimenstration of steam power until you hear this steam train in the hills.  Also they tell us the 6% grade is the steepest on any railroad in the us.  Can anybody guess what the load would be of 7 heavyweight cars with 560 adults plus the cars them selves would be.  Then the weight of the load has to increase on the grade.  What amt of tractive effort would the mallet need for the hill.

Another thing the engineer told me is the water in the hills is so poor they have to reflue every 3 years.  The engine gets run 6 days a week in the busy summer season.  He said they are just finishing a reverse osmosis  water system to use in the engines to save on them.  I wonder if any other steam railroad does this.  Also the engine uses oil for the fire as in a national forest the fire danger is too high with coat cinders spewing out the stack.

Re-flue the engines every three years?!?!?!?  Wow....  Something about that doesn't add up at all.

6% is probably the steepest for a non-geared engine in the US.  Something like the Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia has grades up to about 9%, but that is Shay and Heisler country.

I ran that line Edgemont to Deadwood and HillCity to Keystone and the Hot Springs branch as an engineer for BN in 1974-1975. Really nice job. Usually had 4 SD9s and 35-40 cars, 25 of which were coal for Kirk. The long 3%+ down grades were a bit hairy until you got used to them. There were 4%-6% grades but those were very short.  The Deadwood switch engine went up steep switchback to the gold mine at Lead. If I recall correctly we could only get 2 loads up there at a time with the SW-1 goat.
At that time the Black Hills Central steam tourist job was manned by BN crews out of Alliance, NE (because it operated on BN track). The BHC had to reimburse the BN for Alliance to Hill City deadheads so if you bid in the BHC tourist job as engineer (yes it was steam) and stayed all summer without hardly ever laying off, the BHC paid you a good bonus.
I rode the current BHC a few years ago with some friends from back east. The loco was the 2-6-6-2 #110 and we stalled leaving Hill City and had to back down to try again. He made it the second time. I noted that the 2-6-6-2 #110 had only about half as  much weight-on-drivers as the BN SW1500 switch engine I was working elsewhere at the time.

Train runs in December as a "Santa Train," and it is spectacular in the snow and the below zero cold.

Kent in SD