In the interest of helping answer the question posed in this old thread, I offer the following excerpt from that "Re: Railstar Out" email that is hosted over at facethestate.com. Here goes:
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As for poor little #9, what ever Marlin did or did not do was exacerbated by the piss poor maintenance and operating procedures put forth by Railstar's Operations Manager. It was put into service well before it was broken in and all of its issues resolved. Once #12 broke its axle, any pretense of trying to break #9 in and get it running right was thrown out the window. #9 would spit grease fittings off its side rods and they would not be replaced for weeks (until the next time Steve Butler was coming to town), It ran for quite awhile with no lubrication to the tops of the crossheads, piston or Valve rods (drip oilers that were supposed to be put on before it ran again were not installed for weeks). As may be expected, the crosshead shoes wore to the point that they have a distinct up and down motion to go with the back and forth and the piston rings suffered horribly. The first set of rings lasted most of the season, the second lasted less than two weeks.
On the last day of the season, #9 was so bad that it would hardly get up the hill, so much steam was escaping past the worn out rings that the train would just barley move and we had to stop 4 times to build up water and steam.
and
Morning hostling was also interesting, on more than one occasion I witnessed the operations manager get a late start on the process and
run #9 from 100 psi to 180 psi in less than 15 minutes.
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Chris Webster
[www.speakeasy.org]