Allow me to elaborate on that.
#12's throttle is on top of the boiler and the lever rod extends through the base of rear sand dome to the steam dome. (it was originally intended for stand-up operation, but chairs have since been installed, a great relief for the feet if not for our overused 'keisters') If steam pressure gets above 180 psi, it takes two burly engineers to move the throttle; above 200, it probably does not move at all. (safety valves open at 225 psi) The Johnson bar suffers the same effect. Also, the throttle is leaky; putting the Johnson bar fore or aft is enough to start it.
The cab has the original brake stand in it, but last I knew, it was useless. It only has engine brakes on it, and if train brakes have been rigged up since I last checked, I don't know how. When I was there, we had to stop the train using the Johnson bar and engine brakes, just like they did before Mr. Westinghouse ever set foot in the U.S. Patent Office. By the way, #12 has a compound air compressor that was certainly not original and can stick terribly. Frequently the vibrations of a descending piston make the cab shudder like one of those massaging chairs.
Also, it has no sanders, front or rear. The domes are filled with the right sand, suggesting it wasn't always so, but the pipes that take the sand to the wheels are missing. The air control valve for the sanders is in the cab with copper tubing running to and from it, but I never could investigate closely enough to see how much of the sanding system is left.
That's the engineer's side. The fireman's side is a breeze. Once I got a reasonable degree of skill, I could keep pressure within ten or fifteen psi for an entire 3.2 mile trip while maintaining boiler water level. The only thorn in the fireman's side is the injector, a loose, square added-on assembly of 2" piping literally hanging out under the cab; for a while, we were afraid the whole thing could be swiped off by any tree growing too close to the track. The injector is a Penberthy which requires much fiddling with the water valve before it will put water in the boiler. There are several places along the line where I literally blasted a trench in the roadbed by not balancing the two forces correctly and sending 150 psi steam out the overflow pipe, which is directed more or less straight down. We never tried the injector on the engineer's side.
And, believe it or not, the water line between the tender and the engine on the fireman's side really is held together with duct tape. No joke. Maybe it isn't anymore, but one morning while steaming it up, the line began leaking heavily, and, well . . .
