Cab Ride |
OCTOBER 2002
A few weeks ago, on Sunday, September 8, I had the singular privilege of riding the cab of CNR S-1-b Mikado 3254 for the whole day. This locomotive resides at Scranton, Pennsylvania in the Steamtown collection and, alternating with CPR Pacific 2317, powers excursion trains south to Moscow. The events leading to my riding the cab began a year ago, when I visited Steamtown with some friends. While every sensible person was inside on a cold, drizzly October morning, I was standing in the yard beside the live 3254. The conductor climbed down from the train, and we struck up a conversation. I told him of my series of books on CNR steam operations, and the next thing I knew he arranged for me to visit the cab. I took his name, and upon returning home forwarded copies of my Stratford book for him and the engine crew. Along with his thank you note came an invitation to spend a day on the engine during the next season, authorized by the Trainmaster.This year, my day began inside the roundhouse on a warm September morning. In my Palmerston book, I described a steam roundhouse as the most hallowed of railway buildings, and my first hand experience in the restored Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) roundhouse at Scranton did nothing to diminish this sentiment. A steam locomotive being readied for a run is a beautiful thing: peering forward through large windows, quietly hissing steam, emitting a soft hum, radiating heat... in short, this creature is alive. I was reminded anew of why I regard diesel locomotives with contempt, for they offer nothing in comparison. Pity those souls who have known only diesels! In the roundhouse, the engine crew went about their inspection routine which was practised on this engine at Hornepayne, Capreol, Folyet, Toronto and a score of other Northern and Southern Ontario District division points half a century ago.
In due course, I climbed aboard and the Mikado eased onto the turntable. We spent the morning working in the yard: going for coal, shaking the grates, and adding passenger cars to the consist. In the early afternoon, the crew performed a brake test, registering the requisite 90 lbs. pressure for passenger operation. Shortly before departure time, the 3254 rolled her eight-car train over to the depot.
As the advertised time neared, the dispatcher dictated the order granting our train permission to occupy the mainline for a specified time southbound from Scranton to Dale (just south of Moscow). The engineer read the order back to the dispatcher. This procedure was more than symbolic, as roughly four Canadian Pacific freight trains prowl this track daily, along with Norfolk Southern-Canadian National trains running under trackage rights.
The conductor signalled the engineer to begin, and two short blasts on the whistle resounded in the Scranton yard. The safety valves had just popped at 180 lbs. pressure. Pulling back on the throttle, the engineer coaxed the Mikado into motion, and the bark from the stack echoed off the lines of vintage equipment in the old DL&W yard. From here until Moscow it was an almost steady grade between 1.6 and 1.7 percent, a stretch of track which necessitated helper engines on the steam-era DL&W for both passenger and freight.
As we gained speed, the engine emitted a steady roar, and showered cinders skyward. Anyone peering out of the locomotive cab or a coach without goggles did so at his peril. Inside the cab, the temperature registered 118 degrees. The deck pitched so violently, up and down and to and fro, that I had to continually hold onto something solid, or risk being pitched out the side. Not so the fireman: hunched over and sure-footed, he alternated between adjusting the injector valves and shovelling coal to level out his fire. Every time the butterfly doors opened, I had to turn my head away from the intense heat. A cloud of coal dust continually swirled through the air off the tender deck.
For more than six years, I have been writing of CNR steam era operations: interpreting the experiences of CNR steam men and putting them into words for the rest of the world to enjoy. In the cab of the 3254 storming up that grade at 30 m.p.h., listening to the sound of the stack and hearing the scream of the whistle, I realized that I had served the steam men well, for the experience was familiar to me, even though I had not truly lived it. I made one other discovery, however, and that is this: I have tremendous respect for steam locomotive engineers and firemen, past and present, but I would never want their jobs. A cab of a working steam locomotive is noisy, dirty, always bouncing, and hot. For every hour spent in motion, there is a least an hour spent waiting. A man does not do this job for the comfort, but rather because somehow steam railroading has gotten into his blood, and there is no other occupation which would satisfy him.
In due course, we arrived at our destination, ran around our train, and coasted back down the grade to Scranton. Before concluding this piece, I must mention another experience I had in the morning as the engine simmered outside the DL&W roundhouse. While the engineer oiled his charge, I sat in his right hand seat. The engineer spotted my wife Mary-Jo and two-year-old son Spencer nearby, and called them over. From the ground, he handed Spencer up to me in the cab, and the little fellow sat on my lap in the engineer’s seat. Reaching up, I pulled the whistle cord a couple of times, and the locomotive responded. Spencer looked up at the whistle cord dangling over his head, and insisted upon trying that himself. He did so, with my help, and the CNR Mikado let out a long wail on her whistle.
Down on the ground, the fireman, conductor and I conferred, and agreed that the little guy had just experienced something which he couldn’t appreciate at that age, but would, in time. I related to the conductor as well that I thought Spencer was overwhelmed with his experiences around the engine and equipment. As we strolled along the ballast, my companion looked me in the eye and said "I think his Daddy is overwhelmed too". How right he was.
Ian Wilson
October 1, 2002
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