Saturday Report (BelateddD) November 27, 2021.
The Bored Directors met precisely at 0830 hours to discuss serious business effecting the Town of Tahope and its commercial progress. The contractors submited a report to advise of the substantial progress being made on the "Pub Crawl Enhancement." Short-cuts are being made in order to schedule time for another build. The archetects are supposed to deliver the plans and materials on Monday, November 29, 2021. Meanwhile, when there is a lull in building construction, the Plants and Grounds crew will be sprucing up the area across from Butts Bar-B-Que.
When the meeting adjourned, a freight train powered by L&N L-1 4-8-2 #415 climbed up the Ovalix, albeit with serious pusher service from GP7 1803. The train was spotted a the main yard on the east side of Summit and a Pennsy passenger train (The General) was given her chance to show her stuff. (For those readers who subscribe to MR or RMC, Walthers has been touting their version of The General along the lines of "A Train You Can Model" for several months. Little did they know the A&S already had one in regular service.) Our General travels a slightly different route than the route indicated on the Pennsy map. Ours runs from New York to Miami during the winter season and uses the Seaboard route to get there. A video of a different Pennsy train is provided at the end of this report. The Broadway Limited swings South to Florida during the winter under an accommodation agreement the Pennsy has with the A&S. It provides service to and from New York to the Sanlando Station in Tahope on a weekly schedule.
Meanwhile, a Central of Georgia freight, powered by two of CofG's beautiful E7A's toured the Midlands and provided delivery of goods to various customers along the way.
Our guests arrived around 10:00 a.m., including some of the Saturday Butty Group (Greg DeMayo and Curt Webb) along with Curt's father. This obnoxious bunch caused little damage to the railroad and all of us traveled the mile or so to Del Dio's for lunch. The Saturday meeting terminated after lunch so those of us of the Gator persuasion could watch the annual Florida-Florida State football game. This year's match-up was between two 5-6 teams who played down to their level of competition. Florida managed to barely squeek out a win in the fourth quarter for a 24-21 finish.
This week's story has its inspiration from a tale told in the December, 1939 edition of Railroad Magazine. It has to do with hot boxes, which were a constant problem back in the day and still are a problem on most of our HO empires.
HOT BOXES
The Seaboard has one Miami to New York daily hotshot that provides perishables, such as tomatoes, lettuce, mangos, and other vegetables from South Florida and citrus from Central Florida to the markets and restaurants from Washington, D.C. to New York City. This train is given high priority and the consist is usually composed of the best equipment. The train, named the Fruit Grower's Express, is diesel-powered and only stops for crew changes, one of which occurs at the A&S station in Sanlando.
In late November 1951, the first Florida "cold snap" had come and gone and the citrus was ripening and ready for picking. Ethan Douglas drew the FGX as engineer on November 27, along with Conductor Willie Wright, fireman George Whittle, head shack Charles Tanner, and hind shack Tom Miller. The FGE pulled out of Sanlando on time at 8:07 a.m., powered by three E7 diesels.
Willlie Wright and Tom Miller perched themselves in the cupola of the SAL crummy and kept a look-out over the train for any observable defects that might interfere with the train's progress. In those days, before the common use of roller bearings on freight cars, the truck journals were regularly inspected and carefully packed with oil-soaked waste to eliminate the friction that would cause a "hot box." A hot hox can result in the failure of a wheel and cause a derailment if not repaired.
Lubrication experts will tell you that insufficient packing, waste with poor capillary attraction, a worn-out brass, a rough journal, or lack of lubrication are the main reasons for hot boxes.
The train was about 50 miles from Jacksonville when Miller spied a wisp of grey smoke coming up from one of the mid-train reefers. It had to be a faulty brake or a hot box. Either one would cause the conductor to stop the train. Miller held out a yellow fusee from the cupola to signal the engineer to stop. Tanner spied the fusee and Douglas eased the train to a stop.
The head shack and the caboose crew walked toward the source of the problem and soon had it located. Miller pried upon the journal box cover with his hook. The experienced crew looked into the box and immediately saw the problem. A car toad had packed the journal box too tightly and grease (dope) was not getting to the journal. Miller removed the waste with his hook and replaced it with new waste soaked in "dope."
Soon, Douglas eased the throttle up a couple of notches and the FGX was back up to speed. The stop had cost nearly 30 minutes, but by the time the train reached Washington, D.C., the time had been made up.
Today, there are no journal boxes on freight cars. Roller bearings have replaced them and hotbox detectors notify the engineer to stop the train if in the unlikely event, a hotbox occurs. The conductor, the hind shack, and the caboose have also been replaced. Computers handle the conductor's paperwork involving the consist and the hotbox detector eliminated the need for a rear brakeman. These things also eliminated much of the romance of freight travel. But that's progress.
Here is a short video of Pennsy's Broadway Limited making a whistle-stop at Tahope's Sanlando Station:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vD0uwakaHo&t=19s
The Bored Directors met precisely at 0830 hours to discuss serious business effecting the Town of Tahope and its commercial progress. The contractors submited a report to advise of the substantial progress being made on the "Pub Crawl Enhancement." Short-cuts are being made in order to schedule time for another build. The archetects are supposed to deliver the plans and materials on Monday, November 29, 2021. Meanwhile, when there is a lull in building construction, the Plants and Grounds crew will be sprucing up the area across from Butts Bar-B-Que.
When the meeting adjourned, a freight train powered by L&N L-1 4-8-2 #415 climbed up the Ovalix, albeit with serious pusher service from GP7 1803. The train was spotted a the main yard on the east side of Summit and a Pennsy passenger train (The General) was given her chance to show her stuff. (For those readers who subscribe to MR or RMC, Walthers has been touting their version of The General along the lines of "A Train You Can Model" for several months. Little did they know the A&S already had one in regular service.) Our General travels a slightly different route than the route indicated on the Pennsy map. Ours runs from New York to Miami during the winter season and uses the Seaboard route to get there. A video of a different Pennsy train is provided at the end of this report. The Broadway Limited swings South to Florida during the winter under an accommodation agreement the Pennsy has with the A&S. It provides service to and from New York to the Sanlando Station in Tahope on a weekly schedule.
Meanwhile, a Central of Georgia freight, powered by two of CofG's beautiful E7A's toured the Midlands and provided delivery of goods to various customers along the way.
Our guests arrived around 10:00 a.m., including some of the Saturday Butty Group (Greg DeMayo and Curt Webb) along with Curt's father. This obnoxious bunch caused little damage to the railroad and all of us traveled the mile or so to Del Dio's for lunch. The Saturday meeting terminated after lunch so those of us of the Gator persuasion could watch the annual Florida-Florida State football game. This year's match-up was between two 5-6 teams who played down to their level of competition. Florida managed to barely squeek out a win in the fourth quarter for a 24-21 finish.
This week's story has its inspiration from a tale told in the December, 1939 edition of Railroad Magazine. It has to do with hot boxes, which were a constant problem back in the day and still are a problem on most of our HO empires.
HOT BOXES
The Seaboard has one Miami to New York daily hotshot that provides perishables, such as tomatoes, lettuce, mangos, and other vegetables from South Florida and citrus from Central Florida to the markets and restaurants from Washington, D.C. to New York City. This train is given high priority and the consist is usually composed of the best equipment. The train, named the Fruit Grower's Express, is diesel-powered and only stops for crew changes, one of which occurs at the A&S station in Sanlando.
In late November 1951, the first Florida "cold snap" had come and gone and the citrus was ripening and ready for picking. Ethan Douglas drew the FGX as engineer on November 27, along with Conductor Willie Wright, fireman George Whittle, head shack Charles Tanner, and hind shack Tom Miller. The FGE pulled out of Sanlando on time at 8:07 a.m., powered by three E7 diesels.
Willlie Wright and Tom Miller perched themselves in the cupola of the SAL crummy and kept a look-out over the train for any observable defects that might interfere with the train's progress. In those days, before the common use of roller bearings on freight cars, the truck journals were regularly inspected and carefully packed with oil-soaked waste to eliminate the friction that would cause a "hot box." A hot hox can result in the failure of a wheel and cause a derailment if not repaired.
Lubrication experts will tell you that insufficient packing, waste with poor capillary attraction, a worn-out brass, a rough journal, or lack of lubrication are the main reasons for hot boxes.
The train was about 50 miles from Jacksonville when Miller spied a wisp of grey smoke coming up from one of the mid-train reefers. It had to be a faulty brake or a hot box. Either one would cause the conductor to stop the train. Miller held out a yellow fusee from the cupola to signal the engineer to stop. Tanner spied the fusee and Douglas eased the train to a stop.
The head shack and the caboose crew walked toward the source of the problem and soon had it located. Miller pried upon the journal box cover with his hook. The experienced crew looked into the box and immediately saw the problem. A car toad had packed the journal box too tightly and grease (dope) was not getting to the journal. Miller removed the waste with his hook and replaced it with new waste soaked in "dope."
Soon, Douglas eased the throttle up a couple of notches and the FGX was back up to speed. The stop had cost nearly 30 minutes, but by the time the train reached Washington, D.C., the time had been made up.
Today, there are no journal boxes on freight cars. Roller bearings have replaced them and hotbox detectors notify the engineer to stop the train if in the unlikely event, a hotbox occurs. The conductor, the hind shack, and the caboose have also been replaced. Computers handle the conductor's paperwork involving the consist and the hotbox detector eliminated the need for a rear brakeman. These things also eliminated much of the romance of freight travel. But that's progress.
Here is a short video of Pennsy's Broadway Limited making a whistle-stop at Tahope's Sanlando Station:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vD0uwakaHo&t=19s