Re: Shaking the Grates-working it

I forgot to mention we had a few clips of the guys working the fire-cleaning proceedure. Whats weird was seeing the guys shoveling out the "pits" and then hauling wheelbarrow loads out to the dump area, and seeing cars being filled with ashes/cinders....This reminded me a lot of the Rio Grande which used that sort of thing as ballast on the roadbed.
Another thing some crews did was actually work the polish on their engine if it was an assigned engine and crew. You could always tell the engines that were assigned a regular crew, or where for passenger service, by the cleanliness of the engine, with boiler bands shining, and everything else for that matter. The other workaday "pool" engines were all pretty much the same looking, except for the names on many of them on the smokeboxes.
We spent a lot of noon-times at Orange River, as the sun was higher, and thus not as great for action photos, and it gave us a chance to observe the comings and goings of a real workaday steam servicing facility.
One other thing I forgot to point out, is that Orange River sits near the actual Orange River, so being in a valley, trains had to work upgrade in both directions, which meant a fine photographic show as well for us out of towners!!
Boy those were some great steam activities...probably the best I have ever seen!
Greg