View from 9's cab...
It was pretty cold in the morning but 9 was still warm from the fire up on Wednesday, so it wasn't too long before we got some steam. First casualty from the cold was the vacuum brake valve, which had frozen in the time she was outside. A little of Zack's blow torch and we fixed that.
Other than that, fire up went well, Wes Carpenter was the fireman, and we headed up to the north yard switch and backed down to the enginehouse lead where Fred was waiting with coal. We topped off the bunker and returned to the yard switch which wouldn't close for the main. After some fussing and kicking Jason came up and advised us that was the way it was, kicked the handle closed, and away we went to couple up to our train.
Getting the first train with the 3 coaches and 554 out of Sheepscot was interesting. I opened the throttle and she slipped, which necessitated taking slack and then we got moving. Clearly the cold coach journals and the snow on the rails were going to make a fun day. With the johnson bar in the corner and plenty of throttle, 9 would slip and catch, slip and catch. Finally past the water tower she settled down to a hard pull, spinning over Jane's Way crossing before catching again and marching up to Davis. Up to that point I had trouble getting much of a roll on the train before the slipping took over but hoped things would improve before we got to Sutters and Cockeye Curve.
Just at Davis, we felt a serious thump, I looked at Wes, and he looked at me, and shortly we got a stop from Josh, who was braking on the coach behind us. We found out a coupler between 554 and the Bridgton coach has released, so the diesel came up and grabbed the caboose and took it back to Sheepscot.
With the 3 coaches it was a little easier and we hit Sutter's at a good pace. Cockeye Curve quickly slowed us again to a steady slip and catch all the way to Sheepscot Mills. Sometimes 9 would slip constantly so the drivers were spinning a little too fast for the actual speed, but would hold there and not get out of hand. (You can hear this in Hansel's video) At this point I was starting to gain a little confidence that I could leave the throttle open and she wouldn't completely lose her feet, and could control her more with the johnson bar.
Past Hummason we got up a little speed and we hit the grade in pretty good shape, proceeding from Trask to Alna at a slow but steady pace, barking loudly.
That was the worst trip, but on all but the last trip with just two coaches I felt like we were pretty close to the maximum we could handle on Cockeye curve. Wes did a great job on the fire and we didn't get below 100# all day. 9 likes a heavy exhaust and actually it's a little easier to keep steam up as long as you shovel fast enough.
The other interesting feature was that the vacuum brakes were much, much less effective with the combination of cold and snow. This made spotting the engine at the water tank and stopping for the station pretty exciting.
Thank you to everyone who made this all possible. It was certainly a real Maine winter event.
