The #3781 is seen here pulling a westbound freight. Until today this big machine had a lot of trouble negotiating the mainline. The trouble was due to the nature of cow catcher on the front. It had little wings on either side tht just caught on switch levers. Alone the loco was fine, but the drag caused by a train behind it meant that the nose pointed slightly farther ascew from the tracks.
I took snippers and fixed the problem by removing the offending parts. Now the locomotive runs fine on the main line.
The 4-8-4 type of steam loco is called a "Northern" since it was originally built by Alco for the Northern Pacific. It became one of the most sucessful steam loco configurations and continued in service until the end of the steam era. G&GRR purchased their Northern when the Gregg's bought the railline itself from the Union Pacific. Keeping this oil-burning version alive and well takes a lot of man hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment