Appointment to play trains

Union Pacific Big Boy, and Burlington-Northern Alco Century. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Yesterday (Sunday, May 2, 2010) I visited my old friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”),
Dana is the retired bus-driver from Regional Transit with fairly severe Parkinson's disease.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
Art's wife is gone, so he lives with his sister in Pittsford. He's 69.
Art and I have similar interests, hot-rod cars and trains.
Art has an HO model-train running-track set up in his basement.
I prefer the real thing, but model-trains are interesting.
Apparently he had a few problems with his layout another friend fixed — another retired RTS bus-driver.
So now the drill was for me to go over and play with his trains.
“Trouble is,” Art said; “with Hughes ya gotta get an appointment.”
“Ain't that the truth?” I cried.
Now that we're retired, we have so much lined up any more we have to keep a schedule to avoid conflicts.
Lawn mowing, medical appointments, dog-walking, working out at the YMCA......
A visit to Dana would have to be wedged in.
“I can't rototill, our garden ain't ready.
I can also pass mowing lawn. It's early.
So maybe I should come over,” I said. “It's Sunday; no medical appointments, no errands.
A while ago Art and I attended a model-train show at RIT, and I had to run an errand on the way home.
Visits to Art get hooked up with other errands.
I can't imagine him successfully railing his Union-Pacific “Big Boy.”
It's hard enough for me, and he has Parkinson's.

A real “Big Boy.”

His Union-Pacific “Big Boy” is a model of the largest railroad steam-locomotive ever built, a 4-8-8-4 articulated.
With tender it's over two feet long. Just the locomotive alone is at least 15-18 inches.
“Which one do ya wanna run, Hughsey?” Art asked.
“The Big Boy, or course,” I responded.
“That thing is a piece of work,” I kept saying.
“Especially the rods.”
In a steam-locomotive the driving-wheels are all worked by heavy steel rod-forgings attached to the drive-pistons.
A Big Boy has four sets, two per each driver-set, a set for each side.
It's all exquisitely modeled; tiny silver stampings flashing up-and-down.
On top of that is the valve-gear, another set of rods; four sets.
It's much smaller, a set that works the steam-valving back-and-forth; activated by a driver-set.
It's all gorgeous; looks just like the real thing.
Around-and-around, up-and-down.
A class act.
Art's Big Boy is plastic of the long boiler and cab. More expensive is brass construction of the steam-locomotive boiler, but I think plastic looks more real. It can reproduce every tiny filigree.
Plus it's matte finish. Brass you'd have to spray-paint flat black.
“That Big Boy is the best thing you got,” I kept saying.
The Big Boy set Art back over $300.
We got everything railed and assembled short trains for each locomotive.
The other engine is a six-axle Burlington-Northern Alco Century diesel-electric locomotive.
“Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY. For years, American Locomotive Company was a primary manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives. (It was originally a merger of many steam locomotive manufacturers.) —With the changeover by railroads to diesel-locomotives, American Locomotive Company brought out a line of diesel-electric railroad locomotives much like the railroads were switching to, and changed its name to “Alco.” Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as other diesel-locomotive offerings. Too unreliable.
The Big Boy is American Locomotive Company.
Alco's Century line was introduced in the '60s, to compete with diesels offered by General Motors' Electromotive Division (EMD), which were more successful.
Locomotives with two three-axle trucks (six axles) are road-power for moving heavy freight at moderate speed over a railroad.
Alco diesels were stingier with fuel, but not as reliable as EMD.
If a locomotive crippled, the train could stall and thereby block the railroad. You can't just pull a train out of the way, like a truck. You have to rescue the train; send out rescue locomotives.
The Big Boy and the Alco are at least 20 years apart.
No matter; they're the best runners Art's got.
We assembled short trains for each locomotive; maybe five cars for the Alco, and seven for the Big Boy.
A Big Boy would move 100+ cars in reality; a six-axle Alco Century maybe 30.
I don't think Art has 100 cars; in fact, I don't think his layout would accommodate a 100-car train.
And his Big Boy would surely never pull it.
Art's layout is two independent loops, each run by a separate power-pak.
We can run each train independently, as long as they stay on those loops.
Around-and-around they went; the Alco ran faster than the Big Boy.
Still, the Big Boy was the class act.
Except its train kept derailing.
Art's sister came downstairs, and asked if I wanted to go in with their sub order.
“I just ate eggs,” I said.
Finally the subs appeared, and Art went upstairs to eat.
Leaving me alone to play with his trains.
The Big Boy's train kept derailing; everything toppled over inside a curve.
“Aw man! Ya mean I gotta rerail that tender again?”
The big hand came down from the sky, and slowly rerailed everything.
Art's layout has rerailers, so rerailing freight-cars was little problem. Butcha can't use a rerailer to rerail a motorized engine. Shoving it up and down the track might strip drive-gears.
The tender was hooked to the locomotive by a hidden pin through a long and tiny metal tongue.
You have to hook up everything before rerailing the tender.
And then, rerailing the tender might disengage the pin. Start over.
Another problem was unmatching coupler heights. The train would go over a high spot, and uncouple cars, leaving a segment stalled behind on the track, no longer being pulled by the locomotive.
I finally gave up on the car with the unmatched coupler height, and also on the gorgeous hopper that kept derailing.
Art returned; “Sure runs smooth, don't it Hughsey?”
“Well I guess so, but I've had to keep fighting with that Big Boy's train.”
Around-and-around the Alco went, like clockwork, but “Ulp! Big Boy's train derailed again, Art.”
Derailments on real railroads have to be infrequent. A big hand doesn't just descend from the sky to rerail everything.
Bring in the heavy equipment.

• I'm a railfan, and have been since I was a child — age two. I'm now 66.
• “RIT” is Rochester Institute of Technology, a nearby technical college.
• “Hughsey” (“Hughes”) is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• “Burlington-Northern” Railroad no longer exists. It was merged recently with Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to become Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), a number of railroads between Chicago/Mississippi, and the west coast. (Burlington Northern was a long-ago merger of Burlington Route and Northern Pacific, among others.)
• An “articulated” steam-locomotive has one driver-set hinged to the other, so the locomotive can bend through sharp turns (e.g. crossover switches). One driver-set (the rear) is attached to the boiler, but the other (front) is hinged, so it can angle off-center.
• A steam-locomotive's “tender” is an attached trailer-car loaded with coal fuel and water for boiling.
• “ElectroMotive” (EMD) is a division of General Motors, their manufacturer of diesel railroad-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric diesel railroad-locomotives.
• A “hopper” is an open-top freight-car for hauling stone, rock or coal. It unloads through hoppers at the bottom. —There are also covered hoppers, for hauling grain, salt or cement.
• A “power-pak” (power-pack) is the transformer that energizes and controls track. (Art's layout has two.)