Re: Patagonia, "Spooky", and New Years Day 1984

After that January 1, 1984, whistle blow on Spooky, my brother fired four more weeks on South African Railways before returning to the USA. He did get to fire Spooky just one more time due to problems with GMAM garrat 4085 on the Vryburg - Mafeking passenger run. Here is an excerpt about that passenger roundtrip from his January 27 letter:

"The next trip was my last Dolly trip. 4085 steamed very badly on the passenger, we only had 8 bars [120 psi] and no water going up Mareetsane Bank. I made things worse in Mareetsane when I tried to pull a slide [over the stoker screw in the tender] at the same time Dantjie Erasmus tried to roll on a fire: his springy ashpan pricker sprung out of the hole in the slide and slid into the conveyor and began wrapping itself around the screw before I could get the driver to turn it off and reverse it. I did manage to get it out, but all the new kinks and bends made it even springier and more challenging to pull slides with. We left 4085 in Mafeking and came back on 2644 (Spooky). Spooky steamed OK. Dantjie Erasmus kept using Dave Wardale's name in vain; he is one of many who don't like Spooky. He kept jumping up and down on the sand pedal saying "Dave Wardale, you bliksem !" He goes hard; Spooky responded by slipping furiously."

I called up my brother and asked him why many didn't like Spooky. He said it was because Spooky was one of a kind and had to be run and fired differently than the other Dollies (19D 4-8-2s). For one thing, Spooky didn't have drop grates to remove clinkers from the firebox, but then Spooky was designed specifically to avoid producing clinkers even from low-melting-point, ashy coal. Spooky did use significantly less coal than other Dollies doing the same work, and didn't eject cinders from the stack. Spooky was the test bed for the "Red Devil" that incorporated more of the refinements that Wardale worked out in consultation with Dante Porta. The Red Devil produced 40 % more work, using 40% less coal and 40 % less water than the other 25NC 4-8-4s. But by then it was all too late, and management was determined to change to diesel and electric power.

BTW, I don't know what "bliksem" means, and I am pretty sure that I don't want to know

The Stoker Screw and Slides in a GMAM coal bunker



My brother pulling slides to access coal further back in the coal bunker as fuel is consumed







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2023 11:34PM by Olaf Rasmussen.