Credits:    East portal photo by Alex Mayes.  Submitted by Gary Ostlund.

In 1956 when the fully dieselized Great Northern Railway turned off the juice on their electrified line over (actually under) the Cascade Mountains in Washington state, they thought their trouble with smoke and fumes was over.   Wrong..!  The 8-mile tunnel under Stevens Pass opened in 1929 had been utilized by electric powered trains from day-1. 

With the introduction of diesel-power the tunnel had to be purged of diesel fumes after each eastbound train.   The grade inside the tunnel eastbound is fairly steep, 1.57%.  The long tunnels I know of are either ascending one direction or the other.  Some ascend from both portals to a high point in the middle.  All this is in the interest of drainage.

Fast-moving passenger trains can negotiate the tunnel successfully, but when slower freight locomotives tried it, operating problems became immediately apparent.  Tremendous heat generated by the exhaust gases of slow moving east-bounds raises air temperatures dramatically.  The trailing unit of a multiple-unit train soon overheats and shuts down.  Increased burden on the remaining diesels soon shut down the remaining units, like dominoes.  Another problem not anticipated, the train advancing through the long tunnel creates a “piston” effect, pushing most of the air in the tunnel in front of it.  This left little fresh air to cool the radiators.

Soon a steel drop door was installed at the east portal, along with two 800 horsepower electric motors driving 6-foot fans.  Now when a train enters the west entrance, the door automatically drops, and the fans engage creating a near hurricane blasting past the oncoming train.   Problem solved…?  Not quite

An interesting problem cropped up as a result of “supercharging” the bore with air.  When the door opened to allow eastbound freights to move out of the tunnel a 100-mph gale dynamited out of the tunnel, and rocks and debris were thrown in all directions.   To minimize this hazard the GN blacktopped the area around the tunnel entrance.   Both portals are easily accessed for viewing from US 2, the Stevens Pass highway and Forest Service roads, without trespassing on railroad property.

A dozen years or so back, on the quiet deck out back enjoying our coffee, and perusing the morning mail, Justine read out loud  Rick Bragg’s regular piece in Southern Living Magazine. Something clicked, it read as follows:  “It was in the early 1960s, in a place called Spring Garden, Alabama, where I would lie in my bed in a big, ragged house and wonder if the whole world had stopped spinning outside my window.  I would have asked my big brother, Sam, about it, but he would have just told me I was a chucklehead, and gone back to sleep.  I have never slept much, I think I was afraid I would miss something passing in all that quite dark.  Then, sometime around midnight, I would hear it.  The whistle came first, a warning, followed by a distant roar, and then a bump, bump, bumping, as a hundred boxcars lurched across some distant crossing.  They were probably just hauling pig iron, but in my mind they were taking people to places I wanted to be.  A braver boy would have run it down and flung himself aboard.

And then it was gone, without warning, and I would go to sleep, grudging, and dream about oceans, and elephants and trains.”

That could have been me back in the Summers of mid to late 40s, way across the country out there in Tacoma.  From my large upstairs open window, or sleeping on the ground in the back yard with friends, you could hear the trains switching.  The clear air resonating the sound from over 4 miles away. Sometimes it sounded like the next block over.  Or maybe it was a logging train hauling empties back  to the woods near Mt Rainier, with that “malley” huffing and chuffing up that 3.5 percent grade.    Oh those good ole days.

Did you know the NRHS Alco Historic Photos is the custodian of a collection of almost 300,000 photographic negatives and about 10,000 drawings and documents relating to the ACO and its successor ALCO Products? Take a few moments to browse around the NRHS website and you’ll find some interesting things like this Amtrak RS3. 

Evansville Western Railway, Inc. (“EVWR”), seeks temporary overhead trackage rights over an approximately 11.7-mile line of railroad of Illinois Central Railroad Company (“CN”) between Sugar Camp, Illinois (Milepost 61.9), and Dial, Illinois (Milepost 73.6).

These temporary overhead trackage rights are necessary to permit EVWR to load Unit Coal Trains at Pond Creek Mine near Dial until the Sugar Camp Mine reopens following its closure due to a mine fire and the unrelated, but necessary relocation of long wall mining equipment.

The closure has removed millions of tons from the market, and these temporary trackage rights will permit EVWR to load Unit Coal Trains at Pond Creek Mine near Dial until the Sugar Camp Mine reopens. The temporary trackage rights will expire no later than July 15, 2022.

Get your pictures soon!

Submitted by Chris Dees

On Saturday, June 11, the Madisonville community and some of our chapter members enjoyed the Life Steam-Up at the home of Kathy and Ed Saley, who recently purchased the old Metcalfe home on Princeton Road.  Ed has constructed an elevated G gauge track system for running his and his father’s live steamers.  Ed also has live steam ships and stationary steam engines on display.  He can be found tinkering with the equipment most afternoons after sundown during the summer. Click images for full view!

LORAM Railgrinder RG414 grinds through a curve as it makes its way south at Nortonville, Kentucky on the CSX Henderson Subdivision on May 23rd, 2022.  According to LORAM’s Website: Rail grinding is the cornerstone of virtually every railroad maintenance program. It maximizes the life and value of rail assets through precision removal of fatigued metal, restoration of the rail head profile and removal of rail defects which are the optimization goals of an effective rail grinding program.  Jim Pearson

The Black Hills Central Railway locomotive 108 heads through the countryside as it makes its first trip of the day in stormy, wet weather of the forest to Keystone, South Dakota on my birthday, May 30th, 2022! I for one cant recall a better way to spend the day then chasing a steam locomotive and they later in the day riding it with family! Despite the wet and rainy weather, it was a great day, and I even got the drone up a few times! A big shout out to Cory Jakeway for all the help on finding my way around on the railroad and rail-fanning with me!  Photo by Jim Pearson

It took an upset like this to visualize and explain “Blind Drivers.”  In December 1927 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy narrow gauge Engine #537  rolled off the rails into the snow in the Black Hills.

The pointer focuses on the middle two driving axles, both of which contain blind drivers, wheels without flanges.  In the early days all drive wheels were mounted rigid to the frame. With four axles in a row, the flanges would not negotiate the tightest curves in the rail, causing derailments, not to mention adverse wear and tear.  The flanged front and rear axles provide enough stability to keep the locomotive on the rails in normal operation. It’s the weight on the drivers, not the flanges that provide the tractive force to move a train.

Advances in locomotive design included lateral motion devices on the drive wheels.  #537 was retrieved, taken to Denver, rebuilt with some modern appliances, returned to duty, and performing better than ever.

Thinking back to my Lionel trainset of the 40s, the middle set of drivers also were blind.

 Credits:  Pix courtesy of Roger O’Keefe  as seen in Railroads of the Black Hills, by Mildred Fielder    

Congratulations to Cooper Smith our first place and Bill Grady second place winners of our May 2022 chapter photo contest ! A reminder also that our July 2022 contest is currently underway and it runs for the whole month. All the entries may be viewed on the chapter’s website or our Facebook Group.

Each dues paying member is allowed to submit two photographs taken anywhere during the month. Entries with captions should be sent to jim@jimpearsonphotography.com by midnight on August 7th, 2022.

Get out trackside and shoot some pictures!!!

1st Place winner of the West Kentucky Chapter of the NRHS May 2022 Photo Contest by Cooper Smith – An Amtrak Heritage Unit leads a westbound train through the semaphore signals at Bernal, NM on May 27th, 2022.
2nd Place winner of the West Kentucky Chapter of the NRHS May 2022 Photo by Bill Grady – Thursday, May 9, 2022 finds the President of CSX on a Inspection Trip across the LH&StL Subdivision “Texas”. Seen here on the East end of Owensboro at “Steelton”, the P001-09 originated at Indianapolis, ran to Louisville, across the Texas into Evansville, then south to Atlanta, Georgia.
Locomotive CSX 1 pulling a “Presidential Train” south at the North end of Casey Yard, Pembroke, Kentucky. – Photo by Bill Farrell
In a surprise of sorts, the CSX 911 “Spirit of Our First Responders” is the leader on CSX B419-14(Coke Loads) and is in a holding pattern at North King Siding just South of Princeton, Indiana. Seen here about to depart with a fresh crew, the B419 will head to Madisonville, KY and tie down at Atkinson Yard then wait for a P&L Crew to take it on to Calvert City for unloading. May 15, 2022. Photo by Bill Grady – Photo by Bill Grady
A southbound Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train glides along the coast at Ventura, CA. – Photo by Cooper Smith
A CSX Mixed freight heads southbound on the Henderson Subdivision at Mortons Gap, KY with CSXT 8181 leading. – Photo by Ricky Bivins.
CSX 4535 leads a mixed freight northbound on the Henderson Subdivision at Mortons Gap, KY. – Photo by Ricky Bivins