February 17, 2016 01:56PM
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Registered: 16 years ago
Posts: 14,591
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Hello again -
Late in the afternoon of our third day in Austin, #610 was being prepared for her first night of hard labor pulling the 22-car American Freedom Train. I caught fireman-mechanic Al Phillips and volunteer Merle ("The Mole")
* Rawlins - whose ancestors had settled Rawlins, Wyoming - greasing the rods on the dimly-lit left side of the engine
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Al continued on his own for a while, and then was joined by another volunteer - Bob Slover of Portland, who had helped restore #4449 the previous year
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Bob wasn't with us the whole time, but joined the crew for several days whenever he could get enough time off to make a round trip from Portland worthwhile.
**
Late on the evening of February 17, 1976, #610 builds up steam in preparation for her maiden voyage with the AFT
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Dick Jensen, who had overseen the restoration of #610 in Fort Worth, waits quietly in anticipation of the exciting journey ahead
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While Al, Dick and Russ Shipman prepared #610 for the trip, Doyle and Andy had the afternoon and early evening off to rest up prior to the late-night switching moves and early morning departure. One of the perqs for the unpaid volunteers was a ride in the cab of the locomotive when it wasn't too full with officials of the host railroad. Andy knew I was planning to head home in a couple of weeks, so he arranged for me to join him, Dick and Doyle on that first night of #610's service. Dick was especially nervous, as he was responsible for making sure that #610 was up to the task, and I don't think he had gotten much sleep in the previous day or two. I have a suspicion that Andy hadn't rested a whole lot during his time off either, and by the time we had successfully pulled up the grade out of town and been underway for a couple of hours without incident Dick had fallen asleep on the tender.
Andy supervised me firing for a while, but eventually he too fell asleep, leaving a totally novice student hostler - yore's trooly - to fire out on the road! Fortunately, Doyle was very patient - giving me lots of hand signals and an occasional word of advice - so the four or five hours passed quickly and no serious difficulties ensued. I vaguely remember a long break around sunrise as we waited for a meet - somewhere near Bryan, IIRC - but Andy kept me in the fireman's seat until we stopped briefly near College Station. At that point, exhausted, I talked Bob Slover into taking my place in the cab. I crashed on my bunk in the crew car and didn't wake up until long after we had arrived in Houston.
(To Be Continued.)
-
Roosso
* Merle was a bit shorter but wiry and a lot more agile than the rest of the crew, and was just about the only one of us who could easily worm his way through #4449's frame to undo the plug in the belly of her boiler for the monthly washouts - hence his nickname, "The Mole". IIRC, more than once Doyle paid Merle's round-trip airfare so he could be with us at those crucial times when monthly servicing had to be done quickly while the train was on display for only three or four days at any one place.
** Bob was a senior in high school during the restoration of #4449 in 1974-75, and was taking a shop class that included mold-making and foundry skills. For one of his projects he made a 2"x4" replica of #4449's front number plate, and cast several belt buckles from broken or damaged bronze bearings that had been removed from #4449. The paid restoration crew - Doyle McCormack, Andy Adams, Al Phillips and Russ Shipman - each received one of these original buckles. Several of us volunteers have buckles from the second batch, which IIRC were also cast from bearings removed from the engine. SFAIK the current caretakers of #4449 are still selling buckles made from Bob's mold, but the metal used is commercial brass, and not bronze from #4449.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2021 05:19PM by Russo Loco.
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