A low water story...with a top mounted check

I didn't want to steal the previous related thread so started this one.

Back in '74, I had taken a trip to Brazil to try to see and ride the 2-10-4 & 2-6-6-2 types on the meter gauge EFDTC in Brazil. Torrential rains forced me out of there early and I learned later that Tubarao, the shop and headquarters had been badly flooded.

Since I had vacation time remaining, I took a stop over in Guatemala and found that they were still using some steam. Best news was that my favorite train, the local to Zacapa was still steam although it had lost its coach and was no longer a mixed.

On March 27, I took the morning passenger out of Guatemala City and at one of the later stops, was invited to ride the engine. The crew told me that we'd meet the local at Rancho and that Krupp Mike 174 was the power. Built in the late 30's, she had a front-end throttle and top mounted check.

We got to Rancho just before noon. I got off, thanked the crew and walked up to 174. Both the enginemen were friends and had been on this same engine when I rode it on my first trip in Guatemala in '71.

I no sooner got my camera bag up on the rack when the engineer, Roberto Loyo, got the train moving out of town. We were immediately on the 3.3%, and the Krupp seemed to do pretty well with its over tonnage train. I was invited to fire and enjoyed the opportunity. We stopped at the next train order office as most trains did and I got some orange sodas for the 3 of us.

Later in the day, we stopped at Sanarate to unload tiles from a boxcar and this is where things started to turn sour. The fireman's injector was not wanting to pick up water so we tried the old fix of pouring cooler water over it from a coffee can. This worked with some success, but Roberto frowned and said something I'd always remember "bad boiler check" He later tried his injector but the results were the same, we'd have a struggle for the rest of the day, although there was a few miles near Agua Caliente where everything behaved well. Roberto took that time to show me a chalk mark that he just made on the reverse quadrant so I could see where they'd like the cutoff to be set. Then he climbed up on the tender and walked the car tops back to the caboose and I took the train up the hill to Fiscal where we'd take water again

We got there alright, took the siding and I spotted the tender at the tank. Water quality here was poor and taking same was usually avoided, but not today. Even with the colder water in the cistern, there was not much getting into the boiler so we flagged the passenger and let it run by us so we would not get on their time.

Limping out of there with a trickle of water being fed, I couldn't help but notice the serious looks on the faces of the two enginemen. The Krupp was being run with a much shorter cutoff to save water and she didn't like it at all. I left them alone to stay out of their way. It got dark and we crossed the 240' high Puente de Vacas bridge and entered Guatemala City. By now, the only water evident in the glass was the occasional bump from a change in throttle or run in from the train.

I thought we'd get by, but we came right up on a red signal approaching the viaduct over a large avenue just outside the yard. We sat and sat and in a rare display of impatience, Roberto called for signals so we could enter the yard. He and the fireman quietly conferred, turned to look at me and then pulled the fire and secured the dynamo. After a few minutes, the signal changed to green. We cut off the train and softly limped in to the yard where swarm of mechanics approached the Krupp. We three got off and walked away, tired but thankful.

That's one of my 2 low water stories.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2016 01:52PM by Tom Moungovan.