[PRCo] Re: Steam, Strasburg

[mtoytrain at bellsouth.net]

Fred
No deleting here, thanks for the update, I missed going to Strasburg RR in April and regret it, I find
the place to be super, well I say that about most RR or Trolley places, but please write some more
I enjoy it ALL.

Thanks 

Jerry Matsick 
> 
> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> Date: 2007/05/29 Tue PM 06:18:19 EST
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Steam, Strasburg
> 
> 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
> 
>