Hot Water, I read and enjoy some of the post, as well as corrective answers that folks get, not unlike myself! I don't know if you were working the "3985" when it came to Ky to Pull the Santa Clause train from basically Huntington, Wva to Kingsport Tenn back about 1992. I brought a group of C&O retired engineers over to the Huntington yard facility where the UP train was, to take pictures, and when walking the train from front to back end. There was a big gentleman came out on the back platform of the Obs car, to see what we wanted. I introduced the group, and when I told him the old fellows that I was with, were retired C&O Steam Engineers, he immediately asked us aboard, to sit around a big conference table to talk steam locomotives. They immediately started compairing the Big Boy/Challengers with the Alleghenies, and the 844 Northerns with the Greenbriars of the C&O. It was quite interesting to listen to all of the conversations of the comparisons between the UP and C&O fleet of steam power. Steve Lee was present and sat beside me. I asked him what the horse power was on the big challenger, and he told me it was rated at 5500 draw bar horsepower, and when he got the green light to do a shake down run, they uncoupled 20,000hp worth of diesel locomotives, from a soon to leave train, hooked the challenger up to this train, did an air test, then had that tonnage up to speed with the challenger, quicker than they could with the diesel consist. There was another fellow that came into the car to sit and talk with the group, could that have been "Hot Water", as Steve said that this my fireman! They had the fire out of the challenger at this time, and Steve said they were doing work to the oil burner, and one of the lubricators. I was telling him about my experience firing #6 Oil with boilers, and process heaters at the Oil Refinery that they would pass when heading to Tenn, just outside Catlettsburg, Ky. Were you the fireman?
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