Re: I Stand all Amazed

Notice that half the round weights are missing. They have slots cast into them and slip onto the rod. In the early 1980's, someone thought they would make a nice, if heavy, souvenir. We welded up the rig for one hunk of rail to be the new counter weight. Sometime later the other rail showed up. There is a definite routine to getting water at both Sublette and Cumbres. You don't stuff the spout down into the tank. Let it stand a foot or so above the top of the tender hatch. It will stay balanced as you put the water in. When full, shut the valve and immediately push the spout to one side. When the water shuts off, the spout - still full of water will drop in the tank and into the water. Picking up the spout, which is still full of water takes a serious bit of pulling. smallish people have trouble getting the spout out of the water. By pushing is sideways, it lands on the tank hatch or on the tender deck, dumps a spout full of water on the deck, nicely hosing off the deck washing the mounds of cinders down the drain hole. If you can get the spout out of the water, if you wait long enough, the water will drain out of the spout, but it takes a few minutes.....

There was another routine one went through in getting the spout over the tank. The spout is too short to go over the top of the doghouse and if the engineer over shot the spot bay more than a foot or so, the spout was too short to go over the top of the passenger car roof. So, and we arrived at Cumbres, the fireman would drop off at the spout grab the handle and be ready to "thread the needle" and swing the spout in as the doghouse went by and before the fist passenger coach blocked the way..