Teds guessing game, have a go !!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

The two steam engine references in my post are separate. The so-called Russian type was long out of service by WWII. We sent our allies USRA types- far more modern and nearly interchangeable parts for the first time ever.

[DAVE]

You want to know about my time working on the Eisenhower train. Well, at one time I used
to travel around the Midwest restoring steam locos and old passenger cars for giggles. I based
out of the National Railroad Museum which is actually in a suburb of Green Bay called Ashwabannon.
I had done some work for the then manager, Bob Kirshling, and he allowed us to stay in the
Burlington Railroad dynamometer car, saving us motel fees and travel back and forth. I don't
remember the exact year, but there was going to be a Bob Hope show at the old Lambeau
Field, and part of that was a segment to be filmed at the musuem. The centerpiece of the
segment was to be the Eisenhower train, due to it's involvement in the Second World War,
something it shared with Bob Hope. It needed some "spiffing up", so myself and crew were
given the job. The train was pretty much as it had been after the war, and much of cosmetics
of the engine had to be renewed, as well as woodwork, upholstery and paint in the cars. There
were two excellent woodworkers in the group, and they along with a few helpers handled the
cars. I, along with two friends, handled replacing sheet metal and paint on the loco.
The loco was re-named Dwight D. Eisenhower because he used it as his command center while
in England. And no, we didn't find any bullet holes in it.

[Ember]

[Reslotted]

That's a pretty cool yarn there Dave.
I've got to say, there's some pretty interesting folk with some great life stories on here.
I really like hearing about the stuff people have seen and done.
I can see it now, one day someone will pick through HRW get all these stories and write a book.

Embs I reckon just about everyone in Oz either worked for the railways or know someone who did, back in the Govt run days there were literally thousands on thousand's in each state. One bloke I knew of turned up each day, picked up some files from one desk in the morning, took them to his own desk and returned them to the original desk when he went home, did it for decades without ever actually doing anything with the files. I swear, it's true. He was the perfect "grey man".

[Ember]

His name wasn't George Costanza, was it?

My dad's eldest brother was a driver/engineer for 50 odd years. Their father was a conductor in the days when they still had roving conductors on the passenger trains.

[Ember]

The Ostorero cars list at AUD 300 for RTR or AUD 169 in kit form. Not sure who handles them on your side of the pond.

[Reslotted]

[DAVE]

Some famous locomotives need to be preserved, and kept in museums if they can't be operated. But steam
locos, like old cars, should be run. Which is why I spent so much time and energy working on them, usually
for very little money. It was a need to make sure later generations could enjoy the spectacle of seeing a real
steam loco in operation. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but no picture has ever shown how
big and powerful these things are. And when one is under steam, it is alive. It hisses and purrs. When I worked
at the museum, they ran steam trains on the weekends. They would keep steam up overnight so they wouldn't
have to start from cold the next morning. This meant that someone had to stand watch, and I was always the
first to volunteer for this. Some of my fondest life's memories were sitting in the cab, late at night when it is
dark and quiet, and just listening to the engine and feel the warmth of the fire. And watching the stars. When
the F.R.A. was formed to replace the U.S.R.A., new laws were in-acted that severely hampered museums and
tourist railroads, and made it nearly impossible to operate steam locomotives. Those that still do rely heavily
on donations from well-off railfans. And local politicians who have a soft spot for them like I do.

[The Old Jaybird]

Weren't the Russians built to five foot gauge rather than standard 4'8" to prevent "enemy" railroad equipment to be operated on Russian railways??

[Reslotted]

See I knew you blokes (and girls) would "get it".

old johnny - your spot on there, about keeping anything of historical significance, not just alive and in the possession of the very wealthy to be enjoyed by a privileged few. But out in places where the poorest of kids can see and access and learn about them. History is everybody's to not only look back and be in awe of great things, but sometimes to look and wonder "How did we ever allow this to happen".

Dave, That just about explains it mate. I worked around trains (diesels) all my life and they were just a job to me (Yes I know Diesels have a fan base too) .
I could never work out the big fuss that others (like my Dad) would make about Steam. They, I thought, were just an old, noisy, smelly variant of something I guess I saw everyday and just took in my stride. - Until I actually saw a running steam Loco.
To see an Steam Engine "In Steam" well - it's becomes a living entity, it consumes food and water requires warmth to sustain it's "life" It has to breathe, it must be tended like an infant through the night when first fired, not too much or not too little, enough for it to become almost self sustaining but still needing a little food and water until it's ready to take a few tentative steps, while it's fire grows hotter and the boiler pressure mounts until it becomes ready for traffic. Then it's a beast that will consume huge quantities, the harder it works the more food, oxygen and water it requires, until either the food, air or water is taken away and the warmth goes, then it will give a last few sighs or gasps (they really do) and go back to sleep.
Yep it's a sight (and sound) to behold, it goes that one step further than internal combustion. It's eerie.

[Reslotted]

As For the Russians, well It wouldn't surprise me if they did that Broad Gauge thing, they were pretty clever the way they went about things.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

[Ember]

Ted, even I love steam engines, not specifically trains but statics and all. They live and breathe in a way that other forms of engine do not.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

When I was a little boy, my great-aunt Adelaide worked for the Illinois Central RR. Actually, when she retired, she had been chasing down lost freight cars for 50 years. When she would take trips with my family down 1950s two-lane blacktop highways, she would point at a boxcar on a siding all overgrown with weeds, and say, "There's one I'm looking for." and she would instantly memorize the car number and write it down for when she got back to the office. She was amazing. She took me all over the eastern US on railroads, every summer. She was also a photographer, and she won many prizes for her shots of architecture and steam engines. The most poignant one, the one that got her international attention, was taken in the Chicago stockyards tower, a shot of a long, long line of massive steam engines, lined up on the scrap siding waiting for the cutters. The snow was fresh, so the tops of the rails were black lines in the black & white photo. The snow covered locomotives were the coldest things I have ever seen. Hundreds of tons of iron and steel, ice cold in the snow, after my entire life of seeing and feeling the intense heat of steam engines... I cried, sitting there on a stool, while she made the photo. I didn't know it, but she also took my picture with tears running down my cheek looking at the locos from the window. She didn't publish that one, but she did give it to my grandmother who kept it by her bed the rest of her life.

[DAVE]

The fix for the Russian decs was to put wider tires on the drivers, and change the rest of the
wheelsets to U.S. standards. There is one nearby, which was regularly run on a museum line
until about ten years ago when a major crack was discovered in the frame and the FRA would
not certify it for operation.
All railfans had a good cry when Dick Jensen lost control of his fantrip locos and they were cut
up for scrap. The Burlington engines 5632 and 4960 were well known, as the Burlington ran them
in "excursions" around the Chicago area. The Grand Trunk 5629 was also cut up, having just been
scheduled for a trip which I had bought tickets for. The insurance he had contracted for fell through
before the scheduled date, and he ended up filing bankruptcy after loosing all the money he had
invested in the event. The engines were seized, and cut up during the night so no railfans could
scavenge for souveniers.