[PRCo] Steam, Strasburg

[Fred Schneider]

Subject is steam locomotives, Strasburg Rail Road and my past.  If it  
doesn't interest you, delete without going any farther.

This is for Derrick and Fred Bruhn and any others of you who are  
steam types.

I went to Strasburg today to patronize the book store ... needed some  
of those wonderful map books of our northwestern states.

I noticed that 31 was in service.   My God, that was worth pulling  
out the Nikon.   That little 0-6-0 seldom runs.   And with an 8-car  
train yet.   Why, because 86 and 475 are in the shops and 90 was down  
for the monthly boil wash.

I was intrigued that both 31 and 90 now had Nathan power lubricators  
on the air pumps.   They were not installed when I worked.   When  
were they put on?   Some young wipper snapper said. " might have been  
back in the 1970s or 1980s ... before I came here."   That long?   I  
was feeling like an old fart.   I was still around there as a  
brakeman in the 1970s and they were not there then and he probably an  
infant then.

And there was 90 sitting in front of the house with all the washout  
plugs out and water streaming out of the boiler.   It still had the  
flags on it from service yesterday.   I looked at the driver tires  
and thought, my God, they had to have replaced them at Strasburg.   
They're two inches thick.   I knew they now had that capability  
because there had been a picture published in the Lancaster New Era  
of them doing that to 89 ... with the gas jets all around the tire  
heating it.   And why wouldn't they have put new tires on 90?   I did  
some mental calculations at 60 miles a day in the summer months since  
it went into service in 1967 ... that beast probably has had a  
quarter of a million miles put on it at Strasburg!   Who would have  
ever dreamed it?

Then I went down to the shop and there was an old man still  
working.   Glen Lefevre is 69.  He was there as a young man when I  
was there.   He is tearing the Russell snow plow apart and residing  
it.   He told me this is the second time he has done the south side  
of it since it came there in 1967 but only the first time he has had  
to do the north side.   I remember when it came.   It had been owned  
by the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton (pronounced Gall'tun)  
Railroad.  It was in such bad shape that the weigh bill said to ship  
at the rear of the train, just ahead of the caboose.   Some numbskull  
coupled it behind the engine on a 100 car freight.   It was delivered  
in pieces in a gondola.   The Penn Central paid dearly for that  
blunder.   Frank Herr and Glen Lefever cut it apart and then Sam  
Zimmerman welded a steel frame for each side of it.   The frame was  
bolted to the original wooden underframe.   Huge steel I-beams  
replaced the original oak plow timbers.   Then Frank and Glen bolted  
2x4s into the steel for nailing strips.  When they were finished it  
still looked like a 60-year-old Russel plow but it was built the same  
way.   Right now is the second time you can see it torn apart.

The language was all new.   I was told that 475 was in the shop for  
the 1460 day overhaul.   What the hell is that.   Flues.   I had to  
explain that back in my day flues were done every four years, or five  
if you could account for twelve months in the first four years when  
you didn't use the engine.   Now that the tourist railroads are the  
only people using steam, it was converted to days.   If you use a  
steam engine only on weekends ...firing it up on Saturday, running it  
on Sunday and then dropping the fire ... and you do this only for  
three months in the summer ... looks like you can go for 56 years  
before you have to reflue an engine.  I wonder if there is a  
statutory maximum????   But if you run it full time, it's still works  
out to four years.

Of the 52 vice presidents that recreated the Strasburg in 1958, I'm  
not certain how many are left.   But of those who were active in  
management, only two are still living and both are not doing very  
well.   Huber Leath and Bill Moedinger are still alive ... barely.    
Bill has Alzheimers.  I was told that Huber is very weak.

What is the future for the Strasburg?   Much the same as the trolley  
museums.  They topped out at 425,000 riders per year in the early  
1960s.   People were visiting to remember steam.   Then they brought  
their children.   Then the grandchildren.   I understand that  
ridership today is under 200,000 plus what they get out of Thomas the  
Tank Engine weekends.   Thomas is good for several more million  
dollars and maybe another 100,000 people plus the rentals on Thomas  
from other railroads during the year.   They know that once Thomas  
goes out of syndication on television, they are in deep trouble. They  
also have a wonderful machine shop that does work for anyone from the  
East Broad Top to the Union Pacific.   Sitting in the back of the  
shop today behind their own 475 is Rio Grande Southern 20, the former  
Florence and Cripple Creek engine from the Colorado Railroad  
Museum.   The tender is resting outside on one Pullman 6-wheel  
truck!   I suspect the whole engine and tender would comfortably fit  
inside the firebox for UP 844.

fws3