Hi James,
That was certainly a nice and interesting post regarding your rerailing of steam locomotives. I rerailed my first in 1966, #127 in New York Ship Co., about to run a Ross Roland excursion to Cape May, NJ. I was amazed how easy it is to lift driver wheels on a steam engine account of the linkage suspension system. When one driver drops in a hole, or derails, the weight is distributed to the other wheels. Make sure the engineer ring the bell before he makes any move. That another story.
In your case the trailing truck would be very easy to get back on the rail, believe me, even with a track jacks. Follow the suspension linkage up to the point behind the last main driver (which is on the rail) and manage to drive a wedge in the supporting spring at that point and relieve the relay of the locomotive weight to the rear truck suspension. This puts the engine weigh on the frame member through your wood or metal wedges. Now the only weight you have lift back on the rail is the rear truck frame, journal and wheel weight. One or two track jacks can handle that without ever moving the locomotive. But you can also lay in some flat oak blocks and a wedge and your wheel will flow right back on the rail. None of the locomotive weight is pressing it into the dirt at that time. Pilot wheels can also be isolated to re-rail with ease.
If any one reading this was at Los Pinos in September 1970 when the East Bound Extra #483 burned an improperly lubricated trailing journal, you may remember the 6-hour delay. Hours of attempts were made to jack up the journal box and even a locomotive jack was obtained from Chama. I was figuring these pros knew what they were doing, but after 5 hours I quit my standing in the background and entered the fray when 6 guys where hanging on the jack handle and could not lift the journal box. Not till then did I realize that I could isolate the locomotive weight by wedging between the frame and the spring. I proclaimed my suggestion, they tried it, it worked and we switched the brass so easy I think the labor there could have lifted the journal by hand. So we were out of there, arriving at Antonito about 11 PM. No thanks were received, nor expected, as we were all weary and happy to be on the move. I was hostler for the #483 all-night and worked rear brakeman the next day westbound. There was no hour-of-service as we were not a railroad under ICC but a private non-carrier Colo-NM RR Authority. The reason for the journal problem is another story.
