Mik,
Please don't suggest more blowdowns, especially the mud ring, I know their essential, but also incredibly inconvienent sometimes, for windows at least. Story time. Last summer I had spent quite a bit of time with windex and a rag cleaning something like 48 windows on the train, we rolled out of McEwen and they were sparkling clean, stayed that way until just past Highway 7 on the return trip. I almost think Bret Bane planned this out as he was in the caboose, and asked me something over the platform, I walked onto the rear platform of one of the green cars and looked up to see two huge clouds of steam pouring from the engine. Now usually during a normal blowdown the wind carries the steam away from the train, but this one was special, it was a mud ring blow down. The steam gracefully curved away, and then just as gracefully funneled back in a huge cloud of stinking dirty water. About all I could do was close my eyes as we went right on through, passengers were screaming and all kinds of good stuff. It was quite refreshing, but also very detrimental to a window. Every single pane was coated in a greyish sludgy mixture, fun, fun, fun! At least Bret seemed to enjoy it.
There, thats my rant for the day, not very good, but a nice memory.
Thanks Again, Taylor