Western Maryland Scenic

These are great photos Johnny - many thanks for posting.

I've always liked the WM 'Fireball' logo,  one of the best!

We have a Weaver Western Maryland FA AA pair.

Thanks Johnny!!!

 Love the Western Maryland!

Quick question, there was talk a few years back that they where looking at installing a stoker engine and screw. Did they?

Great Pictures!

Henry J

I love that fireball logo to c.sam.  My Western Maryland roster includes a Challenger, Russian Decapod, shay, 2-8-0 consolidation, A-B-A sets of F3's and FA's (I don't think WM had B units for these though), VO1000 switcher, S-2 switcher, GP35, and SD40.  A GP9 is coming soon!

I don't have an answer for you Henry.  I know during that weekend, they were shoveling coal by hand. 

I don't recall when it was added, but 734 has had a stoker for some time now.

Making all that smoke, I feel sorry for the guy that has to clean the fire at the end of the day.

As a "steam guy" I REALLY do not like photo charters. They are very hard on the engine, with wide swings of boiler temperature. You go from stopped to wide open to stopped again in 3 minutes. The best fireman in the world cannot prevent massive temperature swings when forced to run like that.

And the SMOKE! The photographers aren't happy unless you make a lot of smoke, even though that is a sign of bad firing technique.

I rode in the cab of 734 and operated GP30 502 last weekend...the engine does have a stoker. According to forum member Ed Mullan, who met us at the station, it was installed right around 1999/2000. It came from China. 

Strongly recommend coughing up the $200 for a cab ride to Frostburg and back...what a ride that was! Hope to do it again before the summer is over. 

Thanks Dave and SJC for answering Henry's question.  Now I know too.

The smoke (which some railroads DO tend to overdo) on photo charters tends to be minimized when operating in colder weather.  The two-fold advantage is that you get a lower sun angle which tends to make for better lighting.  The secondary advantage is the cold air condenses the steam, so you get the appearance of steam without wasting a lot of coal.

The phototographers tend to want the smoke to show movement and dramatics in the picture, but there is a very fine line between putting on a show, and the often-present "Burning of Rome" style of photo runby.  See said advantage for cold-weather photo charter.  You won't stop the temperature swings, but it is a way to minimize the coal usage and overfiring that would otherwise be "suggested".

Kevin

I never fired a steam locomotive. So how do they make all the black smoke? Just keeping feeding fuel to the fire? If yes would this make a big mess of unburned fuel? 

Under normal operating conditions like going up grade with engine working then is all the black smoke bad also?

Thanks

Rich and others could explain better, but yes.  Overfiring creates the smoke, and most of the coal goes straight up the stack.