a new (old) #59?

[Jim Courtney]

See all the fascinating discussion of the hinged pilot plows on the previous page, or this may not make sense.


Another photo showing the evolution of the plows:



c.1909, somewhere in the Gunnison area. Gunnison County Pioneer and Historical Society, in the Klingers' South Park's Gunnison Division Memories . . .


Number 67 must still have a wood pilot beam, no cutouts for the steel pilot beam; but a new cast coupler pocket has been bolted to the wood pilot beam, with knuckle coupler way out front. No way this plow could be raised.

The 67 doesn't even have a sheet metal pilot deck as yet. Note the lower chain mounts from frame to lower plow. They don't seem to be under tension. Perhaps they were there to keep the plow from riding up when backing in snow?


(And, John, is that a short wheel base caboose coupled on behind?)

[Mike Trent]

Right you are, Jim! Good find. The lower chains are there to keep the plow from raising in higher drifts. They wouldn't need to keep tension. If they were running a snow train even without a rotary, they must have brought along shovelers. A flanger behind the lead locomotive would have pushed the path 3' wider than the Butterfly plows.  

[John Greenly]

Jim, another great photo find!  The pilot plow history is getting filled in nicely.  But, that caboose… what do you think I am, a magician?  

This one will take some serious thought.  There's both so little and so much to see here.  I'll re-post this photo on the caboose thread  and comment there... when I decide what to say!!

John

[Darel Leedy]

[Dirk Ramsey]

I would go with the extra 5,000 total weight on the drivers of the Baldwins

[John Greenly]

I'm getting back to work on my reworking of my old PFM loco into a version of C&S 59 circa 1918 with an (hypothetical) intermediate tender.  Wow- a century ago, this is a real anniversary!

I just read back through this thread and realized, 1) that it has been almost exactly a year since I last added a post, and 2) what a wonderful thread this has been for me, with all your fascinating and extremely helpful, in fact indispensable, contributions, everything from snowplow mountings to tonnage ratings to, especially, tender configurations and history.  This project of mine is, as much as anything, an excuse for provoking this discussion.  So first, a huge thanks to all, and here's to a new year of continuing all the conversations that arise in the forum!

Here's a photo of the present status of old 59:



The only addition immediately visible is the tender water hatch.  I had borrowed one for photos I posted up to now, but it wasn't the right shape.  I wanted to make one that really is C&S: relatively tall and not a very elongated oval shape, quite distinctive.  From a number of photos, I decided on dimensions of 16" tall, and the oval or race-track shape 16"x21".   I made it yesterday evening.

Here for reference is the 1924 photo of 59 at Central City:



I'm going to start another thread on soldering techniques, and I'll put closeups of the hatch there.

Next I think I'll tackle the snowplow installation properly.  I want to put in a pilot flanger too, and that requires open space between the frames behind the pilot beam.  Unfortunately PFM mounted the pilot beam on a solid piece, so I'll have to do some surgery.  I'll post as I get into this job.  

Meanwhile, I wish us all a peaceful Christmas and/or holiday!

John

[John Greenly]

I got inspired by all the talking about soldering to do some more myself.  I added the triple valve and air lines to 59's tender air reservoir.  Here's the result so far:  



The triple valve I got from Wiseman.  It was on a casting including a not very good tank, but the valve itself is very nice and the only one I could find that is nearly the right size.  I cut it off the tank it came on and put it on the tank I made a while ago for this tender.   I couldn't find shutoff valves small enough, so I made those out of pipe unions filed into a valve-like shape and put handles on them.  That was rather an exercise in Extreme Soldering, those .008" wire handles are not so very big.   I looked at all the photos of the piping that I could find and found no two tenders the same.  I have no photo of the back of 59's tender, so I made up the pipe configuration using aspects of several different examples, including 60's tender, and also 68 and 71 in these photos:





I used .0125" wire for the air lines, or a little over 1" in HO,  which is probably  a bit larger than the real ones, but .010" looked too thin on the model.

The pipes aren't soldered into the triple valve yet, because as you can see in the photo I haven't finished routing them to their destinations. On tenders with a back deck behind the tank like 60, the pipes go straight down through holes in the deck.  In all the photos I have seen of tenders with no deck behind the tank, like 68, 71, and 59 (see the photo of 59 at Central City posted above), the pipes appear to go around the corner more or less as I have made them, and then they go down through or around the edge of the deck along the side of the tank.  I haven't found photos that show them below the deck clearly, to see exactly how the train line and line to the tender brake cylinder are routed.  Also, I don't know which is which, coming off the triple valve.  If someone could help with a better image, or just describe how this should go, I'd be very obliged!

thanks,
John

[Don Gustavson II]

Great thread.
I must say I like the "Keep Off" added / painted onto the plow of 67.
Nice work John.

[Jim Courtney]

John has demonstrated another not commonly appreciated detail on C&S motive power.

I bought the print that John posted of number 71 in repose at Silver Plume in the 1920's:


Photographer unknown, now in Courtney Collection.


Notice the water and coal capacity data lettered on the end of the tender, beneath the air tank.

Before the rebuilding of the tenders in 1918-1921, the same data was stenciled on the end of the tender collar, on either side of the number:


C&S 69 at Pitkin, c. 1909. In the Klinger's Gunnison Division Memories . . .



Photographer unknown, now in Courtney Collection.


None of the photos I've seen are clear enough to decipher -- anyone now of others??

[skip]

John Greenly wrote

The pipes aren't soldered into the triple valve yet, because as you can see in the photo I haven't finished routing them to their destinations. On tenders with a back deck behind the tank like 60, the pipes go straight down through holes in the deck.  In all the photos I have seen of tenders with no deck behind the tank, like 68, 71, and 59 (see the photo of 59 at Central City posted above), the pipes appear to go around the corner more or less as I have made them, and then they go down through or around the edge of the deck along the side of the tank.  I haven't found photos that show them below the deck clearly, to see exactly how the train line and line to the tender brake cylinder are routed.  Also, I don't know which is which, coming off the triple valve.  If someone could help with a better image, or just describe how this should go, I'd be very obliged!

thanks,
John

Here is some background information that may help. I have a couple of main sources with the diagram here from "Instruction Pamphlet No. 5027, February 1909. The Combined Automatic and Straight-Air Locomotive Brake Equipment. Copyright 1909 by The Westinghouse Air Brake Company, Pittsburgh, PA." This seems to have been basic instructions provided to train crewmen. Note that with a 1909 copyright, this pamphlet should now be in the public domain as I understand copyright law so I can make copies.
diagram0001.pdf
On C&S engines, Cock C typically ran along the top of the tender body up to the engineer's side front. Sometimes it ran down under the tender deck, then forward and back up the right-side front of the tender. The tender and train-line brake lines went down under the tender frame.

I also have a nice set of college level railroad engineering textbooks from 1924 covering all aspects of locomotive design, etc. One volume covers brake design and air brakes and notes that accepted practice is to use two main air tanks and the brake diagrams reflect this. So it seems the two boiler-top tanks on our engines were accepted practice.

These have a lot more detail down to rich-cut-away drawings and engineering calculations on the design of all the parts. So if there are other questions, I'll see what I can find.

Skip Egdorf
Los Alamos, NM













'

[Jim Courtney]

Skip,

The piping for "cock C" is the retainer piping that usually ran from the C&S tender's triple valve, around the tender's end and along the upper side of the tender on the engineers side; on C&S locomotives the tender retainer valve was located near the front of the tender side, just below the tender collar on the original tenders, as well as the rebuilt tenders c.1920. On D&RG tenders (and a few C&S exceptions), the retainer valve was in the same location, the piping from the tender reservoir (under the tender) ran straight up from the tender frame to the retainer valve.

The diagram shows a single 9" air pump -- these seem to have been installed on C&S locomotives between 1903 and 1905. Earlier a skinny 8" Westinghouse pump seemed to be the standard.

The addition of tender retainer valves may have occurred later still. TOC photos show no tender retainers/piping:




And as late as 1905-1906, after the 9" air pumps were installed many photos show no tender retainer:




On the other hand, there is a small diameter pipe at the tender frame, that pierces the forward water leg of number 8's tender--perhaps some retainers were initially mounted on the inside of the water leg, on the engineer's side, just below the tender water valve.


And there always being an exception, C&S 6 about 1913 had its retainer pipe run along the bottom edge of the tender side, on top of the frame, then straight up to the retainer valve, like on a D&RG locomotive:




Thanks for the piping diagram!

[Robert McFarland]

Is the first photo an enlargment of a large photo?

[Jim Courtney]

Yes, Robert.

A Dr Curtis photo at the Alpine Engine House, from Mac Poor, Memorial Edition, DSP&P.

Here is the full image:




The northbound mixed with rear helper has likely stopped to set up retainers (funny how we stay on topic) before proceeding through the tunnel and down the east side of the pass.  At this point in time I don't think there was a turntable at Alpine yet -- the helper likely stayed with the train and was cut off at Hancock, turned on the wye and returned to Pitkin, to help the next northbound coal drag.

Lots of good info in one photo, if I'm going to build up a model of C&S 68 in 1901.


Here is another photo of the same train, same place, same date:

[Chris Walker]

Recently John Droste had made comparisons with the stonework in the Denver Union Depot and the Alpine Stone Enginehouse.  I had been looking into that and something that intrigues me was the stone obelisk and steps on the side hill....  never noticed that before either.

[South Park]

  The oblisk is one of several used to tether the balloon that moved the stone
enginehouse to Alpine Station from Denver.  As it was moved in "panels", the
steps enabled the ground crew to repeatedly access the tether points upon each
delivery of sections.

[Robert McFarland]

That should be the location for the well for the well for the water tank.Check out Joe Crea's Engine House article in Slim Gauge News

[Robert McFarland]

What about the two "new" smokestacks projecting through the roofof the Enginehouse -could it have ha stationary boilers?

[Robert McFarland]

What caused the change in light panels on the roof?

[Robert McFarland]

That picture is not in DSP&P Memorial.

[Jim Courtney]

Sorry, Kindig, et al, Pictorial Supplement . . .