CNR 1979 6060 To Gravenhurst, Part 1

There is only one 3/4 view of the 6060 in this post. This was my first steam excursion with an SLR camera and an 'unlimited' supply of film. It was enjoyable to photograph a variety of subjects during the trip. 

Here is the train in Toronto before our departure.

This is the promised 3/4 view.

Looking to the west. 

If you want to patronize the revolving restaurant in the new CN Tower, 

the elevator ride will be free this morning (speaking from contemporary experience).

This was before the advent of the hit-and-miss access to window seats ... and the airline-inspired interiors.

I should have taken more shots inside passenger cars!

Out on the road ...

The fireman checks the tender. 

He may be using a standard tape measure to document the water level.

Standard letter sets were pressed into aluminum to label the auxiliary systems' steam valves.

The top right label is the easiest to read: MECH LUB HTR

The heavier oils associated with steam locomotive operation were heated by steam so they would flow.

The lines connected to gauges were more economical and functional than aesthetically pleasing. 

This was a working locomotive on the CNR roster and not a pampered museum piece. 

This is a cluster of air brake gauges. The throttle comes down from its quadrant, silhouetted in front of the window. Notice the 'special rack' for train orders. 

Turning the camera lower, you see the throttle again in front of the forward-facing cab window. 

The larger train brake (automatic) handle is closest. Behind is the smaller (independent) 'straight air' handle. 

The red-handled lever on that quadrant in the lower right is the reverser. It controls the 'steam cutoff'. Positioned as it is in this photo, steam will be admitted to the pistons for most of their travel ... to provide the maximum steam power to start the heavy train. As the train gains speed and momentum, the engineer will bring the cutoff lever up, closer and closer to the centre of its travel, to take full advantage of the expansive power of steam ... to use less steam, and therefore, less fuel. 

It was just an expression, but a moving train using just a 'tick' of steam was said to be 'in the company notch' of the reverser/cutoff lever.

To reverse the heavy train for one of the runpasts, the engineer would move the cutoff lever to the point of that quadrant which is closest to the camera.

I think it was on the Bytown videotape of the 1201 (from the 1980s?) that a young CNR diesel engineer noted the contrast ... between operating the then-existing typical diesel units ... and operating the 1201. While the diesels take a while to 'load' when the throttle is opened ... the power response with a steam engine is 'instant' as soon as the steam reaches the cylinders. 

The largest gauge shows the boiler pressure - calibrated in pounds per square inch.

On the shelf on the hot boiler backhead to its right, to keep it warm, is a 'tallow pot' with thick lubricating oil.

The rectangular light at the right is on the sight glass. This gauge indicates the water level inside the boiler.

On the fireman's side: The most prominent control is the oil regulating lever.

Below are some diagrams showing the parts of this control and the damper lever.

from: Firing Locomotives; JW Harding; 1912-1928; International Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

This is the oil regulating lever. An interesting aspect of this device is that its low setting should be customized. The pin at g marks its fully-open setting. The pin at f marks its fully-closed position. 

It is desirable to custom-set a point on the low end - like an idle speed on a car. The stop c is set by tightening its wing nut at a point where steam will be maintained, but the safety valves will not be set off. When a train is 'drifting' or stopped, this setting is used.

from: Firing Locomotives; JW Harding; 1912-1928; International Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Dampers are set to admit combustion air into the firebox. There is usually a front and a rear damper. Letter e marks a damper. You can imagine that the firebox occupies the big space in the middle of this diagram.

You can see that this arrangement combines the oil regulating linkage ... and the damper controls ... in the cab. My guess is that this is for design efficiency and operating convenience - rather than because the two settings are mechanically hard-linked in any way: air supply and fuel supply. 

These diagrams are from Southern Pacific Railroad equipment from 1912 (SP was one of the pioneers of oil firing). While the oil regulating lever has a finely-notched quadrant allowing many different settings, these dampers only have (the book says: 'only need') 5 settings.

Another person enjoys the cab visit ritual. My cab photos are always rushed because there is always a long line of people who have never been in a cab before. 

One of the advantages to overhauling an engine specifically for excursion service is that things can be customized to facilitate post-steam operation in a diesel-electric world. On both sides of the tender, I think you can see ground-level tender filling receptacles for both oil (with the pipe running to the top of the tender) and water (close to the camera). 

Here, you can see an open damper.

For the excursions of the early 1960s, the CNR used locomotives still in regular service which they held over past the steam deadline, i.e. 5107, 6153, 6167. There were no water towers maintained in service to support these steam operations. 

Consequently, it was necessary to make an appointment with the local fire department in advance, and a pumper truck was often connected to a hydrant to fill the tender. Local firefighters got to clamber on board the tender to operate their equipment. This operation provided an extra bit of pageantry to the rare local sight of a steam locomotive. Townspeople joined the excursionists in the experience.

Another stop, another top-up of the tender. Trains magazine once recounted the process unintentionally used by local fire departments to obtain new hoses. A fire would result in hoses being run across the tracks - without knowing that a call to the railway might be indicated. Rail traffic would not be stopped and the hoses would be cut by an unsuspecting crew operating through the town at normal track speed.

The engine crew receiving some information from the ground.

The engine crew at their stations. Whatever is in the bag ... did the vendor of the bag ever imagine that it would be used to accessorize a restored oil-burning steam locomotive?

*  *  *

Eric's got lots of 6060 accounts and history for you to enjoy ...

UCRS Toronto to Gravenhurst behind 6060 September 29, 1979

KFC, 6060 and Me

CN 6060 Fantrips 1973-1980

CNR 1942 Smoke at Turcot; 1956 Smoke Committee Visits Montreal

In the mid-1960s there was a refinery fire in eastern Montreal and an AM radio host commented that it looked like the area had 'received a megaton', i.e. the massive cloud of black smoke suggested a nuclear attack. 

Formal awareness of "pollution" in school began circa 1970 in a Grade 7 Science class and water pollution in the Great Lakes was our first focus.

Each era has its own priorities and zeitgeist. The Second World War had cast its own shadow over the future existence of its schoolchildren, too.

I found this transcript of an Ontario legislative committee during a routine search on the GTR/CNR's "Turcot Yard" - my own lost world of wonderful pre-school childhood memories. 

I was surprised to see the term 'Air Pollution' used before the 1960s. Probably, professional civil servants on the cutting edge of industrial hygiene were already looking at the broader environment and how we were altering it.

... Certainly, the longstanding nuisance of finding soot particulates on laundry hung out to dry (see Page 3568, search: "clothes" or "fallout" [!] ) had been a longstanding problem caused by smoke. 

While I am emphasizing only the railway-related testimony, other industrial operations are also considered. As we know from historical hindsight, 1956 was very late in the Canadian history of railway steam locomotives to be worried about their smoke.

The excerpts I have reproduced below came from an excursion taken by this Ontario committee to Montreal. In the course of their sessions, they discuss current operations at Turcot and explore the projections of change from dieselization. 

Accessible by a URL at the end of this post, the CPR President's testimony accurately predicts the end of steam - about five years in the future. 

The entire document (633 pages):

https://archive.org/details/31761114665508/page/n6/mode/1up

*  *  *

Turcot Yard roundhouse, circa 1942.
Photo by LC Gagnon.

Some time around 1942, student LC Gagnon was avoiding being too obtrusive behind the late summer grass as he photographed a transportation asset which was among the many things which were not to be photographed during the war. 

There was a war to be won: With competition from local shipping and trans-Atlantic convoys for coal, and with shortages of spare parts and skilled labour, Turcot roundhouse was creating great clouds of coal smoke. 

Over on the Ready Track beside the heated water tank (with the globe high on the mast indicating it is full of water), the white plume of steam from a raised safety valve can be seen.

After each run, most engines required maintenance, or at least an inspection, in the roundhouse. A trip to the ashpit (beyond the right margin) was also necessary. After servicing, in preparation for the next trip, fresh coal would be thrown into the firebox of an engine. The resulting inefficient combustion of the developing fire caused unburned flammable gases to escape out of the smokestack, along with small particles of soot.

... With railways playing the most important land-based role in the transportation of troops, military equipment, food, civilian workers, and commodities ... the idea of reducing air pollution for the sake of the environment, or even for the sake of human health, was not a factor which would be considered. 

The vantage point is Upper Lachine Road and the St Lawrence River exists somewhere in the distance.

Coincidentally, the community newspaper of my father's childhood home put this piece of corporate boiler plate into the public record to fill out its usual column-inches of text. It provides a nice contemporary overview of the operations pictured above. The Axis spies don't read the local papers, so don't worry.

from: Westmount Examiner; 11 December 1941; BANQ.

*  *  *

Back to 1956 and ...

Proceedings of the Select Committee appointed by the Ontario Legislature 

to enquire into certain matters and legislation 

regarding smoke control and air pollution in Ontario.

The whole section discussing Turcot and local industries starts here:

https://archive.org/details/31761114665508/page/3556/mode/1up?q=%22Turcot+Yard%22

end of first selection

*  *  *

Turcot in 1908

from: Montreal Daily Witness; 15 October 1908; BANQ.

From another archival source, comes this nice newspaper space-filler from 1908. At this point, Turcot roundhouse was a modern wonder in Canada. The yard was planned and the roundhouse was built circa 1903 to 1905. The air is almost smokeless. 

The archived scanned image was almost black - very dark. In this lightened version, above, you'll notice the relatively small size of the locomotives. Their tenders bear the large Grand Trunk numbers. 

*  *  *

If you have been following Eric's ongoing chronicle of today's CNR lawyers dealing with VIA's implementation of the new Venture equipment, you will recognize the style of some of the practices used to protect the railway's operating preferences:

VIA Ventures in Service, Part 5

*  *  *

In this second section of 1956 testimony, below, my favourite railway lawyer response to a smoke complaint is:

"They would not admit that the locomotive was operating."

The attempts to reject the Ringelmann Chart (today, it is all over the internet) perhaps suggests buying time through feigned ignorance of 'the industrial standard'.  

Pertaining to the Ringelmann Chart 'document' used in measuring smoke darkness ...

(Everyone works from Upper Lachine Road!)

*  *  *

If you've ever wondered what CPR President Norris R 'Buck' Crump (1904-1989) was like, 

the Committee questions him at Toronto, starting at the link below.

https://archive.org/details/31761114665508/page/3489/mode/1up?q=Crump

He talks about: 

Dieselization at length, mentioning the 'DCs' (I assume Rail Diesel Cars: CPR 'Dayliners'), 

Pool Trains, Lambton roundhouse smoke, his personal experiences as a railroader, 

the smoke he sees from the 16th storey of the Royal York, 

and he also discusses other railway systems he has visited. 

In the record, he is referred to as The Witness or 'A.' (answer).

Later, the Commission took him out to lunch.

*  *  *

end

CNR 1922 CD Howe's Terminal Grain Unloader

Having seen my post about the grain doors and end doors used with wooden boxcars, Jim Christie thought I might be interested in this piece he found some time ago, from our favourite professional journal Canadian Railway and Marine World ... Page 175 of April 1922 ... if you go looking for the original at archive.org .

Clarence Decatur Howe (1886-1960) was an engineering consultant in the grain trade. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1935 at age 50. Over the years he was ... Minister of Marines, Railways and Canals (i.e. Transport); Minister of Munitions; Minister of Reconstruction (after the War); Minister of Trade and Commerce. 

He was a cabinet minister under Mackenzie King, and later St. Laurent for a total of 22 years and his accumulated wide-ranging power and authority resulted in the nickname: 'Minister of Everything'. 

In the beginning ...

Howe was born in Waltham, Massachusetts and graduated from MIT in 1907. His engineering specialty in grain elevator consulting began in 1916 at Port Arthur. So this 1922 article finds him early in his grain elevator consultation period.

*  *  *

It is with a great deal of humility that I tiptoe into the subject of terminal elevators at the Lakehead. In spite of owning many postcards, I cannot accurately describe the location, corporate builder, changes of ownership or current status (standing or demolished) of most of the elevators shown in my postcards.

I believe that the two postcards in this post represent the elevator in CD Howe's article. Elevators are long-lived assets which are often subject to considerable alteration to modernize their automated systems. At least one catastrophic explosion, with loss of life, caused significant damage to this elevator, as well. 

If I understand some of the excellent websites which document these buildings (and the article text), part of this elevator was constructed not of poured concrete but multiple layers of tiles. Some fascinating photos of the tile bin interiors can be found on the internet.

You should start here:

https://friendsofgrainelevators.org/

Postcard mailed in 1912.

from: Guardians of Progress; Thorold J Tronrud; 1993; Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society.

While this map shows some aspirational real estate developments, I believe it accurately positions the grain elevators on the waterfront. As there was only one 'CNR' back in 1914, the postcard image shows the postcard elevator by the 'O' in Superior.

*  *  *

Jim Christie's article appears below. CD Howe writes in straightforward engineering terminology. You can see his ability to cut to the essential as he describes the cumbersome power shovel work when compared to his gravity dumping system. 

The article details at some length the description of the mechanism and the rationale for its design. Much of the value of this post comes from the images, so you may wish to concentrate on them if the description becomes too abstruse.

I have tried to make the text as legible as possible and the illustrations as clear as possible. I have provided the images early in the article as it may make your journey through the explanation a little easier.

The serial number of the Valentine postcard below suggests a 1927 publishing date.

It seems to show the opposite view (the lake side) of the elevator.

Unused postcard. The date may be the date purchased.

end

CNR 1939 New York World's Fair - Travel by Train

The CNR/GTR added their own promotional pages to this brochure promoting the upcoming 1939 New York World's Fair. The Fair gave itself the difficult task of predicting and portraying the future and you'll be amused by their models of urban centres with faraway clean, green satellite suburbs and factories - with no low-level urban sprawl between them. 

A couple of pages are devoted to 'the railroad industry' and its extensive exhibits at the fair. All the railway materials are in the last few pages.

Being a World's Fair, many European countries had their own exhibits and most of the American states also had exhibit buildings. US industrial giants showed off their inventive and scientific expertise through projections of their exciting new products of the future.

Edward Hungerford (1875-1948) referred to himself as the 'foremost rail fan in America'. This is certainly an early use of the 'railfan' term. His varied career began as a journalist and evolved into his becoming a railroad public relations professional, promoter and author. The link to his Wikipedia page appears below, as does a rough search result for his books at archive.org. For the Fair, he developed the full-scale railroad pageant which you can see via the YouTube links below. 

Like the Fair, Hungerford's book on the future of railroads (Pattern for a Railroad for Tomorrow, 1945) has some interesting urban planning ideas ... and it features innovative and/or radical track plans for major US centres. These assume that the 1939 World's Fair had not just presaged the post-war decline of the railroads - precipitated by the public interstate system ... the self-promotional, lobbying and industrial might of the motor vehicle industry ... and the suburban lifestyle of the 1950s.

*  *  *

The Recent Past and the World's Immediate Future

As this Fair worked to predict an amazing and wonderful future, the horrors of the First World War were just 20 years in the past. The Great Depression had just drawn to a close. Safe between two oceans, most Americans would not be drawn into thinking about, or participating in, the Second World War for another two years after the Fair. Public knowledge of the atomic bomb was 6 years in the future.

One person had predicted his own future before the Fair. The brochure mentions that the music for Hungerford's railroad pageant was specially composed by Kurt Weill (1900-1950). Weill was a German Jew who had seen Hitler come to power and he had fled Germany in 1933. 

Weill's ballad of Mack the Knife came from his Threepenny Opera (Die 3-Groschen-Oper) - written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Bobby Darin popularized a version of this song in 1959 for those Americans living in post-war abundance - two decades after the New York World's Fair of 1939. 

*  *  *

To experience some of the essence of the 1939 New York World's Fair and its focus on railroads ...

to YouTube

Model railroad exhibit 1939 World's Fair

Newsreel, 1939 New York World's Fair

Compilation of Railroad Exhibits, 1939 New York World's Fair

to Wikipedia

Edward Hungerford 1875-1948

to Internet Archive

Books by Edward Hungerford

After posting: My sister Allison found this link to a semi-synchronized sample of Kurt Weill's music for the Railroads on Parade pageant (shown in colour) at the Fair. There is an interesting story at the end of the video explaining how the 'lost' music was rediscovered and how a copy of it can be obtained.

1939 - Kurt Weill's Music for RAILROADS ON PARADE

Low Bridge, Everybody Down (1912) and other pre-existing pieces of music were incorporated into Weill's composition. 

The heavy, harmonized, grand choral style of the music seems strange today. However, in the 1940s and 1950s it was often used in patriotic film soundtracks, for some Walt Disney live action movies, and in advertising.

It would be interesting to know if any specific safety protocols were put into place for the railway equipment moves around the costumed 're-enactors' - particularly for the fast movement at 3:03 of the video!