S.P. #18 - Sunday 02/27/11 Work Session (pics)

Thank You, Members of the Carson & Colorado Railway, Inc. -
For a very warm reception on an otherwise rather cool day!

In spite of serious predictions of the worst blizzard since nineteen-aught-seventeen, Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny, so I reversed my decision of the evening before and set out for Independence on a round-about scenic route by way of Soledad Canyon and Randsburg.  The only snow flurries encountered were in Santa Clarita, and there were some small hail-stones on the ground near Agua Dulce Canyon Road, but otherwise the highway was clear and the snow apparent only on the distant peaks of the Sierras to the west and on the White Mountains to the east.

Early Sunday morning I arrived at the park where #18 has resided since about 1955 only about five minutes ahead of Randy Babcock, IIRC the head machinist of the D&SNG.  He and Sean Jackson, the car shop foreman, have been commuting all the way from Durango to help out with the restoration of #18.  Randy put me to work helping to finish up the grid needed for the ultrasound mapping of the thickness of the boiler shell; he finished off the right side while I was practicing on the backhead.  (As some of the following photos will attest, the first line I painted – just to the right of the firebox door – is anything but straight.)  Randy then climbed into the firebox to begin marking the grid on the inside, but was interrupted by my curious Dutch Bulldog, Bosco, who may have been scouting for a place to get out of the cold breeze:




After about 45 minutes, we left the park and headed over to a lot behind the Inyo County Museum, where #18's tender and three freight cars are on display.  The tender is currently sitting on a pair of D&RGW freight trucks, while the Simplex tender trucks are being disassembled for a complete overhaul.  Here Randy introduced me to Larry, two Daves, Marty, two Ricks and Sean — all of whom were working on separating the bolster from the frame of a tender truck, after removing the bearings, etc.:


As you can see, Independence is located in the midst of some spectacular scenery.  The photo above is looking northeast toward the White Mountains, which are nearly as tall as the Sierras shown below looking southwest.  Per Lynn Cromer, pictured below from left to right are Bosco's new friend Cooter the dog, local; Tommy Myers, local member; Rick Eckhardt, local member; Rick Cromer, local member; Randy Babcock, Vice President of CCRW, Bayfield, CO, in charge of restoration; Sean Jackson, Bayfield, CO; Dave Mull, President of the Carson & Colorado Railway and a local; Dave Morrison, member from Lancaster, CA; and Larry Peckham, local member:


Randy and I returned to the park for a while to finish applying the grid, and then went back to the museum just in time for some large and very good sandwiches brought by Rick Cromer's wife Lynn and Dave Mull's wife Betty and daughter Cassie.  The break gave me a chance to stage a poor-man's reproduction of a very famous photo, and later to get a photo of Sean putting his gloves to good use:


Note the excellent condition of the axle in the above photo!  According to Randy, the S.P. apparently gave #18 a very thorough shopping not long before her retirement.  The main engine bearings seem to be in similar condition, as the engine has proven very easy to move back and forth on the short length of track in the park.

(To be continued.)



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2019 04:29PM by Russo Loco.