Doug Kerr
Well-known member
On a recent long weekend Carla and I took a wonderful driving trip to northern New Mexico. The excuse was to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary, and Father's Day as well.
Our first port of call was the charming town of Chama, N.M., almost on the border with Colorado. From there we rode the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad (C&TS), a steam-powered historic narrow-gauge (36 in/914 mm gauge) railroad that runs 64 miles from Chama to Antonito, Colorado. The line is part of what was once the San Juan Extension of the Denver & Rio Grand Western Railroad. The line passes through some of the most spectacular mountain and forest scenery you can imagine.
I'll start by talking about our locomotive, beginning with this:
Photographer unknown (a kind volunteer): Doug and Carla in front of C&TS 489
The arrangement at the Chama terminal did not facilitate a good shot of the entire locomotive, so I'll skip ahead and show her at work along the way:
Douglas A. Kerr: Around the curve
You can see here the "doghouse" atop the tender. "In the day" this was the "office" of the train brakeman (on a hand-fired locomotive such as this there was no place in the cab for the brakeman to "hang out" - the available space on the deck was occupied by the fireman shoveling coal from the tender into the locomotive firebox). From the doghouse the brakeman could overlook the entire train to be alert for any "inadvertences" (smoke coming from an overheated wheel bearing, etc.).
489 is one of the C&TS' "flagship fleet", a narrow-gauge version of the famous 2-8-2 "Mikado" type. The type got its nickname when the first serious order of the new design was made by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Japanese National Railways, "Mikado" being of course the then-title of the emperor of Japan and a name familiar to many Westerners by way of the well-loved Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, "The Mikado".
In 1925, Baldwin built ten of the narrow-gauge version of this type (known as the K-36) for the Denver & Rio Grande Western, for use on their narrow-gauge San Juan Extension. Amazingly, nine of these are in operation today, five of them on the C&TS (including our 489) and four on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, another historical railroad operating in southern Colorado not too far from the C&TS. The tenth of the batch "fell into" a turntable pit at the Salida, Colorado yard in 1953 and was deemed only suitable to be cannibalized for parts.
Some narrow-gauge steam locomotives are substantially smaller than their standard-gauge brethren, and often follow the same basic design, just scaled down. But the narrow-gauge Mikado was larger than proportionate to the gauge (although still smaller than the standard-gauge version). This led to an interesting design.
On the most familiar steam locomotive design, the driving wheels (drivers) are located outside the frame rails. The crank pins are set into the drivers themselves, which then became the cranks. Cast into the drivers are counterweights, needed to balance the mass of the main connecting rod and side rods. We see that in this photo of a standard-gauge Mikado:
Standard-gauge 2-8-2 Mikado ("light" version)
In the narrow-gauge version of the Mikado, the driving wheels are set inside the frame rails. Of course, they cannot then serve as cranks. Instead, outside the frame rails, on the shafts that carry the drivers, are separate counterweights, which carry the crank pins and are therefore the cranks. We see that in this picture of C&TS 489:
Douglas A. Kerr: Narrow-gauge Mikado counterweights
[To be continued]
Our first port of call was the charming town of Chama, N.M., almost on the border with Colorado. From there we rode the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad (C&TS), a steam-powered historic narrow-gauge (36 in/914 mm gauge) railroad that runs 64 miles from Chama to Antonito, Colorado. The line is part of what was once the San Juan Extension of the Denver & Rio Grand Western Railroad. The line passes through some of the most spectacular mountain and forest scenery you can imagine.
I'll start by talking about our locomotive, beginning with this:
Photographer unknown (a kind volunteer): Doug and Carla in front of C&TS 489
The arrangement at the Chama terminal did not facilitate a good shot of the entire locomotive, so I'll skip ahead and show her at work along the way:
Douglas A. Kerr: Around the curve
You can see here the "doghouse" atop the tender. "In the day" this was the "office" of the train brakeman (on a hand-fired locomotive such as this there was no place in the cab for the brakeman to "hang out" - the available space on the deck was occupied by the fireman shoveling coal from the tender into the locomotive firebox). From the doghouse the brakeman could overlook the entire train to be alert for any "inadvertences" (smoke coming from an overheated wheel bearing, etc.).
489 is one of the C&TS' "flagship fleet", a narrow-gauge version of the famous 2-8-2 "Mikado" type. The type got its nickname when the first serious order of the new design was made by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Japanese National Railways, "Mikado" being of course the then-title of the emperor of Japan and a name familiar to many Westerners by way of the well-loved Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, "The Mikado".
In 1925, Baldwin built ten of the narrow-gauge version of this type (known as the K-36) for the Denver & Rio Grande Western, for use on their narrow-gauge San Juan Extension. Amazingly, nine of these are in operation today, five of them on the C&TS (including our 489) and four on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, another historical railroad operating in southern Colorado not too far from the C&TS. The tenth of the batch "fell into" a turntable pit at the Salida, Colorado yard in 1953 and was deemed only suitable to be cannibalized for parts.
Some narrow-gauge steam locomotives are substantially smaller than their standard-gauge brethren, and often follow the same basic design, just scaled down. But the narrow-gauge Mikado was larger than proportionate to the gauge (although still smaller than the standard-gauge version). This led to an interesting design.
On the most familiar steam locomotive design, the driving wheels (drivers) are located outside the frame rails. The crank pins are set into the drivers themselves, which then became the cranks. Cast into the drivers are counterweights, needed to balance the mass of the main connecting rod and side rods. We see that in this photo of a standard-gauge Mikado:
Standard-gauge 2-8-2 Mikado ("light" version)
In the narrow-gauge version of the Mikado, the driving wheels are set inside the frame rails. Of course, they cannot then serve as cranks. Instead, outside the frame rails, on the shafts that carry the drivers, are separate counterweights, which carry the crank pins and are therefore the cranks. We see that in this picture of C&TS 489:
Douglas A. Kerr: Narrow-gauge Mikado counterweights
[To be continued]