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Sanding the flues! I actually got to see this done once — and coincidentally, it was 50 years ago this month (April '66)! It was my second year in college, and I'd gone to Mexico over spring break hoping to ride and photograph the last branchline narrow gauge passenger train on the N de M, which ran between Cuautla, division point on the old mainline between Mexico City and Puebla, and Puente de Ixtla, about 50 miles down the Yautepec River into the Balsas Valley. It was a short mixed train, and when it stopped (every couple miles) I'd run up to the front and take pictures. The second or third time, the engineer waved for me to come ride in the cab of his 1902 Baldwin, which I did for the next few hours. I spoke no Spanish then, and he couldn't speak English. But he was great, showed me what the important stuff was, taught me how to "play" the whistle, actually let me run the locomotive between a few stations (until he saw the conductor crawling over the tender, whereupon he quickly moved me over to the fireman's side — LOL). At one station stop, there was a slight upgrade, and I had to sand the rails to overcome a little slippage on the ancient (what? 30-lb?) rail. And at one point later during the trip, the engineer and fireman looked at each other, and then the fireman went to a small box on his side of the tender and did just what Phil said, except he actually had to open the firebox door. No separate hole as I recall. He just opened the door and threw in a scoop or two and Poof! What a shower of sparks! __._,_.___ Posted by: jonathanharris@earthlink.net __,_._,___ |