In this video, at around 3:30 you can see the bell on the front of the locomotive rolling. Does anyone know if that is done by a crewman pulling the rope and letting the bell roll over, and repeating, or is it some kind of automatic mechanism?
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In this video, at around 3:30 you can see the bell on the front of the locomotive rolling. Does anyone know if that is done by a crewman pulling the rope and letting the bell roll over, and repeating, or is it some kind of automatic mechanism?
That's the air ringer piston that's doing that. It happens when you open the bell's air valve too much. You can also yank on the bell cord with gusto and rotate the bell. Santa Fe bells usually had an anti-rotation bar to prevent the bell from rotating. It's obviously been broken off or been removed.
Rusty
Thanks Rusty! I've been wondering about that for quite some time ever since I saw that video.
I like to spin our bell in front of the kids on our train when we go by--it's kind of cool for them to see.
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