More on Flexible Beam Locomotives

Recently John Ott completed another fantastic drawing of a flexible beam locomotive to add to his collection of early locomotive drawings. If you haven't seen his work, then please check this website, a sample of which is at the right.
The new drawing depicts the engine  Iron City.

I asked if John could do a version of the drawing showing the flexible beam 0-8-0 engine Washington, as used on the USMRR Aquia Line. John quite correctly pointed out to me that the Washington was likely an older and smaller design. He would need to do more research before he could do a proper drawing.

I have never seen a drawing or photo of the Washington. So I contacted my friend Nick Fry, curator at the  John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library  and Vice President-Operations, BORRHS
for help. Sure enough he hit pay dirt. He sent me this scan of by Edward Wiswesser's book,  "Steam Locomotives of the Reading and P&R Railroads."  Nick believes  that the USMRR Washington was probably of the same class as the Baldwin built P&R Pocahontas, which is similar to the Princeton in the photo below. Although a flexible beam locomotive, it is quite up-to date in appearance for an ante-bellum locomotive.  I suppose the loco had a standard tender behind it.  Such a loco would make a good scratch building project for me.

New Train Bulletin Sign at Falmouth

The laser cutting work station is complete and the laser is back in operation. The first task was to engrave a new train bulletin sign at Falmouth. The previous train bulletin was recycled from McCooks and showed trains Eastward and Westward. That caused some confusion for my boomer operators, so I made a new one showing Southward and Northward, the same as in the time table.

For material I used some left over masonite that was finished for chalkboards. Marty left some of this material here after I did a small cutting job for him (actually it was for his wife, but the reason is Christmas confidential).  The material engraved nicely and made a good sign.

A Laser cutting workstation

   

The current work station is inefficient and disorganized

All tools must fold up and be put away to fit the car in the garage

The new design work station 

After years of using a simple plywood and 2x4 based work station for my laser, I decided to build a better one.  The current work station is inefficient as there is a lot of wasted volume, and tends to get disorganized as there is no good place to store materials.

The new design would have places to store materials,  a sliding shelf for the laptop,  and a place where the compressor sits on the floor to minimize vibrations. I am using this project as a self training exercise to learn how to use some new tools I purchased.

Since I have no room for a table saw in my garage, I bought a Festool Track saw and rail, their matching router, and a multifunction table. I also picked up some accessories to help cut things square and parallel. Those included Parf dogs, Seneca Woodworking parallel track guides, and Festool router guide stops.


























It took awhile to learn how to use the various accessories (yes, I did read the instructions), and I made a few mistakes, but the basic frame is done after day 1.  Tomorrow I'll add the sliding shelf, cubby holes and  face frame. I'll also drill out the hole for the air line and electric power to the compressor. I may try to add a master switch for the all the electrical components too.

NJ-DC Interchange 2017

Trains 3 and 4 meet at Brooke.

Bill and Henry pass Brooke

This year it was the Washington DC area layout owners turn to host the annual NJ-DC interchange. It is an annual event that has developed over the past few years where layout owners from each region host the layout owners from the other region.  We had a whole weekend full of events and op sessions planned for our northern visitors. Alas, I was not fully recovered from my cold, so I only participated by hosting an op session on Sunday morning.

My gallant crew of boomers included Henry Freeman, Bill Raymond, Tom Piccirillo, Andy Busgard and Jim Schweitzer.  Since the op session had to start in the morning to give the visitors time to drive home, we ran the morning session on Aquia Landing. This was the first time we ran the morning session.

Andy and Tom switch Falmouth

Henry and Bill ran Trains 3 and 6, while Andy and Tom ran Trains 4  and 5 back. The initial trains got off to a slightly late start, but they were able to make their meets on time. After a brief learning curve on the couplers and Stanton throttles, both crews did a great job and the trains ran extremely well.  Whew!

The commissary provided their usual great snacks, this time dark, double chocolate Ghiradelli brownies, coffee and tea. Thank's Alicia.

Jim has the right whiskers for operating on Aquia, but he took
PoLA for most of the session.

Meanwhile, Jim Schweitzer ran PoLA as a solo operator. He is an experienced operator so I knew he could handle it. I used the revised switchlist that listed hold cars as well as pick-ups and set-outs. I also added an extra task by requiring the out-bound cars to be classified according to destination railroad, UP and BNSF in this case. Jim liked the railroad and remarked that it was a lot of work for 5 sidings. He also felt that he could have used a 2-man crew as the job has a lot work for one person. At the end of the session, Jim ran the General's special from Falmouth to Aquia. It was actually easy as there were no scheduled trains on the road when he ran

Prior to their arrival I added two more box cars and a new conductor's car to the Aquia layout. So now all scheduled trains have a conductor's car to run in their train.

Jerry and Jim

On Saturday Paul Dolkos, Tony Koester, Perry Squire, Jerry Albertie and Jim Leighty visited my house after operating on Paul's Baltimore Harbor.  They got to tour the layout, but did not operate.

Later on Sunday Mike Willegal and his wife, Christie, stopped by to see the layout on their way to South Carolina for Thanksgiving. Mike is planning an HO version of City Point.

All in all a great weekend. Sadly, I was not the only one that got sick on the Detroit trip. Several of the NJ guys also contracted colds, but they toughed it out to operate this weekend.

Christie and Mike

Coal and Caboose

A few weeks ago I sifted through the conductors reports that I copied at the National Archive several years earlier. One of the reports listed coal as a commodity being shipped to Falmouth. I am really not sure why they were shipping coal at this time. One possibility was to refuel steam boats that landed at Falmouth. But I don't believe the Union forces were sending steam boats up the Rappahannock to Falmouth at this time because the southern shore of the river was in rebel hands.  

As far as I know, no locomotive on the Aquia Line burned coal. I have message traffic that talks about locos getting wood and water.  The USMRR did have some coal burning locos in 1862 that they borrowed from the B&O in service on the O&A, but those locomotives did not make it to Aquia.

The amount of coal shipped on the Aquia line was small. So it was unlikely a major fuel source. However, they may have stockpiled coal at Aquia Landing to refuel ships, so some coal might have been available. Perhaps the coal shipped to Falmouth was for use in tent stoves, especially at Headquarters.

As I was wondering this, I found a flash news reel from the USMRR Aquia Line that explains the situation . I've included it below to allow the widest dissemination.

I made the coal load with a piece of foam painted black and covered with real crushed coal . Like all my loads, it is removable so the car can return empty.

To improve the tractive effort of Osceola I filled its firebox with cubes of tungsten. I was able to get about 3 ounces in firebox void. It does seem to improve the pulling power of the small loco.

I added another caboose to the inventory this week. During a typical op session we have two trains running at one time, so now each train will have their own conductors car, also known as a caboose.