Although SUPERPOWER was billed as a 3-day event, in actual fact Friday 16 September was more or less a routine Friday with the usual limited weekday timetable except for one extra train: a vintage train made up of three old carriages and the ancient steam locomotive "Prince", built 1863 and a contender for the title of World's Oldest Working Locomotive.  As it has been rebuilt at least twice, I wonder how much of the 1863 metal is still there.  This vintage train ran also on Saturday and Sunday.  "Prince" came on a visit from the Ffestiniog Railway because "Palmerston", a very similar engine, could not.  Whereas "Prince" is an oil-burner, like all the Welsh Highland locos, "Palmerston" is a coal-burner and the Snowdonia National Park authority obviously decided that the vegetation was still too dry to risk sparks and cinders. 

Another even smaller visitor was "Elidir" from the Llanberis Lake Railway.  "Elidir" really does look like a toy engine but such locomotives once did a very tough job in the North Wales slate quarries.  They were often taken up to the working levels in pieces and assembled there.  They would work reliably for years with minimal maintenance.  "Elidir" did a magnificent job in the North Yard, giving footplate rides to the carriage shed and back.

The real event began on Saturday 17 September.  The big NGG15 Garratts, numbers 138 and 143, plus "Prince" and "Caernarfon Castle", our 350 hp Cummins-powered diesel-hydraulic, were all in action.  A non-stop train ran right through from Caernarfon to Rhyd Ddu each morning, giving the Dinas stationmaster the task of exchanging tokens with the fireman as the train passed. 

I spent most of Saturday guiding visitors around the loco shed, telling them about the restoration of our third NGG16 Garratt, number 140, whose boiler and engine units were on show.  We hope to have 140 running for the opening of the last section of the line in 2008.  In mid-afternoon, my period of duty ended, and I became a traveling railfan once again.  I went up the line to see our longest-ever train run past Plas-y-Nant.  As it was rolling downgrade at that point, I still did not hear 143 working hard but I heard that the driver was most impressed by 143's performance and said he now realised he had never before felt or heard an NGG16 working as it was designed to work.  The longest train was made up of eighteen vehicles: twelve freight wagons and six passenger coaches.  Most of the Garratt-hauled trains over the weekend consisted of six of each.  It was great to see real freight on the "B-wagons" for once.  The load was material that will be used to build the next section of line. 

On Sunday 18 September I enjoyed a trip to Rhyd Ddu on a B-wagon along with some other volunteers.  I spent the afternoon wandering on the mountainside at Rhyd Ddu, enjoying the sunshine.  I took some pictures which I hope will look as good as the trains did - but they are on slides that are as yet unprocessed. 

When we put Otto our 0-4-0 1939 German built Henschel away for the winter, we discovered that the ash pan was deteriorating to a point it was time to replace it.

We pulled Otto over out pit to have a look at how the pan was held up in-between the frame. At first glance, it looked as though if you removed the four cotter pins it may come out with a little bit of luck. The cotter pins were not your normal ones but about an inch in width and about three inches long. After we removed the cotter pins there was no way it would come out in one piece.  So we started to disassembly the pan.

The pan itself is actually made of 11 separate pieces and all but two of them had to be taken apart to get it all out. There is not a lot of room between the frame and axles to work, but we were able to crawl up into the firebox from underneath to cut the top bolts off that hold the side plates on.  The firebox looks bigger when you’re inside of it then when shoveling coal through the small door.

After all the pieces were out our CAD designer drew up a print to have all new stainless steel pieces made.  When all 11 pieces were made, we then bolted it all up and it looked like the original one.  We disassembled it and started the installation process.

It took some tweaking and some elbow grease not to mention a jack but it is in and should last a long time.  We believe from the material that was removed, that most of the pan was original from the 56 years it had been there.  The boiler and ash pan were changed out in 1949, except for the damper door that had signs of being modified.

I guess if true 56 years is a good life for an ash pan.

 
(Switcher #320 and M of W #141 parked at the end of track as of 6/4/05.)

 
View down the hill, this is a tough climb, especially when it rains.)

(S-curve leading to the steep climb up the hill.)

Shady Creek RR got a boost Aug 5^th to 8^th when David and train friend Rod laid over 60 feet of track over and beyond the shaded creek that the RR derived its name from. 

Before new #30 rails were laid, a last minute management decision (between David and me) was made to replace the wooden timbers with more permanent steel I-beam for safety and future maintenance reasons.  The 2-man crew worked hard in the 30-degree heat bringing in dozens and dozens of 3-gallon pails of ballast stone to the boat, then across a lake and up to the site by tractor.  One would be surprised that 400’ of track laid to date requires several hundred pails of stone, over 16 yards! 

#10 loco moved track tools and rail on newly rebuilt MOW 1 and 2 over the trestle bridge with ease over the weekend while ‘toe hoe’ was there to do a final leveling ahead of the ties and lift rail in place.  The used lumber tarps seem to work under the ballast and track in more than one way on our line.  Weeds won’t grow, water runs right off the gently sloped roadbed keeping the ties dry, and the stone doesn’t sink into the earthen roadway, plus the moisture is reduced in the ground under the track for the soft and frosty times of the year.  Next phase one of 2 switches will go in to start the supply switchback to the lakeshore as described in the last newsletter.

Tom and I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  We have enjoyed working on The Two Footers Newsletter this past year and look forward to hearing about exciting projects that the members will be working on for 2006.  Have a great Holiday Season!

The Two Footers
534 Armory Road
St. Marys, PA  15857

tpbauer@alltel.net
or
tom@thetwofooters.com

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