A good fireman cares about the important things. It is basically a balance of keeping water in the glass (above all else!) a hot fire ,and watching the tracks ahead on your side of the engine . It is also smaller details like not popping off (wasting steam) ,keeping the cab clean , always looking for signals on your side , and watching for problems with the train ,like derailed cars or hot journals . Ultimately ,a good fireman is only as good as the engineer that teaches him . Beware that there are bad engineers ,that do not care about the fireman ,that abuse the fireman (and ,in turn, abuse the engine ) , and in some rare cares ,deliberately screw the fireman . If the stack is barking too loud ,you are running through a lot of water , shovelling you ass off , and that Johnson Bar is further forward than it should be(big tipoff is you can't see the Johnson bar) , or running the engine against the air brakes ,downhill , you are getting screwed . Your options are..1.Put down the shovel ,cross your arms and wait for the engineer to realize that he is out of steam . 2. TELL him that he will run out of steam if he doesn't get his act together . 3 . Set the air brake FOR the engineer and tell him to get his act together . 4 . Carefully lay the shovel on his shoulder and tell him that being a jerk can go both ways .
Most of the engineers I worked for were decent men ,that basically were good to me . Everyone has his bad days , and that ,too ,goes with the job. But I worked for some very abusive men ,including the very first engineer I worked for ,that bitched constantly ,had little consideration for me ,and criticized me behind my back . After some very bad treatment from a few pices of work ,I swore I would treat my firemen like gold when I was finally promoted 12 years into my railroad career . Ironically ,kindness is considered by many a weakness ,and several fireman abused me .Indeed , one firemen worked behind my back to get me fired on one road,and one provoked me in a situation that got me fired on another road . So when I returned to engineering at Chama in 2000(thank you Bob Wright) I had a different attitude .One fireman had so little respect for me that he told me I sucked as a fireman ,after I fired for HIM up Cumbres! As it turned out ,he didn't know how to run the engine to in a way that helped the fireman .Boy did I tear him a new one ! Hopefully ,he learned a lesson.
What is the bottom line ? As Earl said ,getting a steam locomotivce over the road is a team effort . A mutual repect in that cab between both engineer and fireman is crucial .
