Once In A Life Time Opportunity 2 Big Boys Locomotives Together @ Steamtown National Historical Site

It's not very often that we stand in something, especially like a wheel, that's bigger than both of us. Yes. But the drive wheels on the big boy are larger than both of us, at least because they're up on the track a little bit, but still. Yeah. They are right between you and I in height. That's impressive. They're massively big. Yeah, I mean this thing weighs 1.2 million pounds, so it's no lightweight. All right, welcome back to Zephyr Travels. I'm Randy and I'm Diane, and today we're visiting Steamtown Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It's another stop for the big boy, what number? 414. 414, and it's parked alongside one of its siblings that is permanently on display at the museum. It's 4012. Yep, so we decided to take a ride down since it wasn't that far away and continue our big boy videos. Right, our big boy experience. Right, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, and we wanted to experience it. Plus, Steamtown is a place we've kind of wanted to go for a long time. You know, Diane's dad was a steam engineer, and I know he'd visited here. Yes. And it's a place we wanted to come visit too. This is the line to get in the cab of big boy 4012, but I think we're going to walk over and catch the view of both of them. One of the things about steam engines that's so impressive is that all their mechanicals are on the outside. The body, or essentially, is just a boiler, and that's where all the steam is created, but the mechanicals here are right by the wheels. This is a view that you probably never get to see again. There's a two of these sit side by side. There's only eight big boys left in the country, only one that still moves, and that would be 4014. And so to see it parked next to another big boy is very unusual. This is probably the only place it would ever happen, and probably will never happen again, at least probably not in my lifetime. This is the 4014. It is here for two weeks on its way to Philadelphia to celebrate 4th of July, and then it makes its trek back to Wyoming. Now we've been lucky in that we had the opportunity to see this train in motion a couple of times, and I'll show a little bit of that video in here right now, but this train is super impressive. Steamtown is a National Historical Site. It is maintained by the National Park Service, and this was a working railroad roundhouse where they maintained trains for the Lackawanna, Delaware, and Western Railroad. Today it is maintained as a park, but they do continue to work on steam engines here. Now a lot of the steam engines here are static displays, meaning they've been restored for visually, as a visual restoration, but they don't run, but there are a number of them that actually have been restored and run, and they continue to work on those here and actually take them out for tours. This device here is a turntable, and this is how they would move trains to the different garages where they could be repaired in the roundhouse. So the trains would come in in this track over here. They would come in on the turntable, and then this turntable would pivot around and turn and line up with any one of these other tracks that the train could be offloaded into a workspace. Now, so apparently these turntables are quite well balanced. You can see down here the mechanism. They do use a single rail, and they probably have a drive motor on there that's probably electric, and the operator would be in that building there and would maneuver it around and line it up with each track that goes into a garage. Better than the one in Georgia. Remember we went to the train museum there? Yeah, it was much smaller. Yeah, but they still had the roundhouse. Right. But not as, you know, well kept as this one. Well, because a lot of this has been rebuilt too. Yeah. All this here is new. Yeah. And it was rebuilt in a way to blend in with the existing, and it's a much bigger collection. That's true. So, you think they got any engines here that your father worked on? Oh, I doubt it. They might have the same type. Yeah. Actually, we think that one right there, 2124, might be similar to what he would work on, but I don't know for sure. I mean, he's not here to ask anymore. Although Diane's dad isn't here to ask, but this is very likely the era of steam engine that he worked on when he first started working for the firemen, and then worked his way up to engineer, and he stayed with the railroad until in the late 90s when he retired. At that point, he was running diesel locomotives. Now, it's interesting how the fireman would have been in that cab there, and probably, it depends on what type of engine. Earlier engines, you'd actually had to hand fill the firebox with coal. Newer engines, probably like this one, had a mechanism to move the coal in, but the fireman would maintain the fire in the boiler to optimal pressure so that the engine would be most efficient. Well, shall we go in the visitor center? Sure. So, here's our comparison of stagecoaches to steam trains. From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, it took one, two, three, four, six days, where when a steam train came in in 2001, it took five hours. These guys are laying railroad track. It is on a bed of gravel or sub base, and it's steel rails. They're four feet and eight inches apart. It's a standard gauge. This would be the roundhouse office. Probably all the work orders and repair orders are all set up here and executed in the roundhouse. The technology of controlling traffic on the railroads has changed throughout the years. At one time, there was hand signals before regular signals were put in place, and lanterns were used. Oh, look, a picture of Dad. And there's Diane's pot. Kind of, not. Push one of those buttons. Well, push the one on, yeah, that one first. So, you're supposed to decipher what the whistle means. Oh, wrong. I'm not very good. Did you get any of them right? No. So, trains used to have to stop and get unwritten orders before radios, so they would stop at the stations, which they were doing anyways because they had to get coal and water every a few hundred miles, not even 100 miles, probably every 50 miles or so. This showed some of the different variations of engines. These bottom three are articulated, and it's like the big boy, which is here. This is where the firemen would put coal into the boiler to keep going, or into the firebox. These are the engines that are at Steamtown, and we're kind of drawn to this one because we think this is similar to what Diane's dad worked on. Rather sparse. Well, let's say he had a paper to read. Really? This is where you could ride up here and monitor the train from the back. Except for the engineer, it's probably the best seat in the house. Going in here, we get a walking tour of the roundhouse. Here's a cutaway engine. Start here with the firebox. This is where the coal was entered in. The heat from the firebox would pass through the boiler here, where water was transported inside these tubes. And the smoke box is where the exhaust exited out the smokestack. All that produced steam, which went down to these motors here that drove the driveways. The tender was attached to the engine, and in that carried water and coal in two different compartments. And this fed the engine. A lot of older engines were fed by hand by a fireman. Later engines used a auger system to move the coal into the engine, and he still managed by the fireman. Just shows the changes of the roundhouse as engines changed, the roundhouse's needs changed, and they had to be rebuilt and made larger because steam engines became larger. Whatever the case is, good to have you here. My name is Alex. We have volunteer ranger Don in the back. I do want to formally welcome you to Steam Town National Historic Site. For Americans, this is your park, and we are grateful for your visitation. You are looking at the old facilities and grounds of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western. The DLNW for short. Its mainline route ran from northern New Jersey, Hoboken, New Jersey, with access into New York City, ran across the state to Buffalo. Where's my friend from Buffalo? All the way across the state to Buffalo with access to the Great Lakes region. That is the grounds. The collection of locomotives that you will see here today once belonged to Nelson Blount, a very wealthy individual. Wealthy enough to collect real train equipment, while most of us collect baseball cards and toys. Nelson purchased decommissioned railroad equipment from the railroads directly. You are going to see more or less locomotives that represent New England, the place in which he grew up. He was a very generous individual as far as my understanding. He created a physical site and a foundation to help preserve steam locomotives. The name of that site in Bellow Falls, Vermont, Steamtown, USA. It would eventually relocate to this abandoned rail yard in the 1980s, and to abbreviate the story by 1986, the collection, the grounds officially became under the management of the National Park Service Momentarily, turn your attention away from me and take a look at the circular section with the large pit in the middle of our roundhouse structure. The roundhouse itself is the facility that encompasses the turntable in the middle of it. During the Lackawanna paydays, there were 46 stalls that serviced and maintained the locomotives that came into this space. The turntable, like the circulatory system, like a beating heart, allowed for new vehicles, new locomotives to come into these spaces to be turned away in service here in this roundhouse section. Turning your attention to the door, perhaps behind you or in front of you, this section of the roundhouse dates to 1902. Turning your attention away from that building, we will enter the 1937 section. Number 26 engine that you see probably just next to you or in front of you. Using that as an example, keep in mind this was a place of work. To maintain the locomotives that were a part of the Delaware Lackawanna and Western's fleet, they routinely came into these spaces after approximately 150 to 200 miles. They would receive an inspection. This wasn't the only service location along the main line. It was one of three. After basically a run of either passenger or freight service, it would come in, it would be inspected visually for anything that legitimately has broken. It's also receiving grease and lubrication. Anything that has become loosened, it's now tightened. Think about allowing your vehicle, every time you're done using it for the day, to go into an automotive shop just so that it can be inspected every time it's in use. You can identify things or be on top of things more efficiently than allowing something to break down while it's in service. These are incredible machines that spend about 50 percent of their working life under maintenance and care. Think about your own car, truck, or van in the auto shop, something like every other day, and you begin to sense how impractical these machines are. And yet, they really still are incredible pieces of machinery. With that said, let's talk a little bit about the space that we will be moving into. Because these locomotives were manufactured with specific parts and custom built, if anything was broken and needing to be replaced, the railroad company, like the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, they were responsible for fabricating the parts to replace the components that were broken. That is why the next building becomes rather so crucial. We are in a building that was built in 1865. While this building is one of the oldest here at the facilities, it is not historical by National Park Service standards. This building, over decades of use, has changed multiple times. The equipment, the presses, the drills, the planers, the presses, all date back to a more modern time, the 1950s. When the National Park Service took over the management of the site, by and large, this building was empty. We needed equipment to help fabricate the parts that were necessary for repair. Well, we called up one of the world's most famous porters. Based on its color scheme, who do you think we called up? The military. They had equipment that we could use to help produce some of the general conditions of the scene here. As you look eastward, over my shoulders and head, you're going to see a large structure behind me. It's actually obstructing the horizon, as well as the mountains. That is the erecting shop, built in the early 1900s. The space that we just came from would be replaced by the park, or excuse me, the building across the way. That had 40 stalls capable of servicing 40 locomotives, cranes powerful enough to literally lift the engine up off the track and relocate it. I couldn't even begin to imagine what that site would have been like. Now, let me point out some other things that you might appreciate. That bridge and walkway that expands over the rail yard, admittedly that's not historic in nature, it does rest on the footprint and concrete work of the old coal truss. Imagine, if you will, a structure similar in shape and design, allowing a locomotive to cart coal to the top, then the coal being emptied into the locomotive's tender weighing below it. Not perfect, but think of it a little bit like the gasoline station, a place to refuel for the rail yard. This large structure, kind of a tan yellow quality to it, that's a sand silo. They literally store sand in that structure. Sand is used to provide grip between the locomotive's wheel and the rail itself, providing traction. Much like an athlete might dig their cleats into the turf, that sand can provide the necessary grip. And I'll be honest, lots of equipment that have seen better days, all of which, as far as I am aware, presently is not intended to be refurbished or restored. However, the space that we're about to enter, well, rather re-enter, I'll show you some of that work. The Boston and Maine is another project that we're doing. It was manufactured in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Ridership across the country was slumping, as you might imagine. To promote ridership and, we suspect, to promote a little bit of boost in morale, the Boston and Maine Railroad decided to have an essay writing contest for their newly manufactured Boston and Maines. There was an individual, James Moore, elementary, excuse me, junior high school age, who wrote an essay that basically said, the backbone to industry is the railroad, in the same way the backbone to the United States is the Constitution. While the name was so loved and appreciated, they literally named this locomotive the Constitution. Now we're going to go into the roundhouse where they store some of the vintage locomotives. They have a catwalk across the top that we're going to be able to walk through and see the locomotives in there. This is a working engine that they use for tours. It's actually got a fire going in the firebox, so it's heating up and getting ready to be used. This is a Baldwin locomotive from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. This one was built in March in 1929. So all these trains run? I think a lot of them do, yeah. Look at that. You can actually go underneath them. You're not going to lift it up. These engines are Canadian engines built by the Canadian Railway. Wow, look how old this one is. Here you can see the grease pit that went underneath the engine, allow them to get underneath for service. During our tour, we learned that these engines would be serviced every day after about a hundred miles of use. I said, can you imagine the time that in the, if you lived in that era where all these, you know, are actually operating steam locomotives? How neat it is to see them. I mean when these were everywhere, it was, it's almost equivalent to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. These are the dinosaurs of more modern era. That's true. I mean they're massive. I mean I know, you know, the current day ones are massive too, but they're just not. It's on a different scale. And they're not as impressive. Well because all the mechanical bits are on the outside. Yeah. So you can see everything that makes it work. I mean the the round part here is just produces steam. It's a firebox and a steam box and a smokestack. Everything else is on the outside. All that mechanical stuff, all the, and the engines are the pistons and all that. You can see the tender. Here's the full section. And everything else behind it is water. Oh this would be a mail car. A postal car. These are really neat. We went into one of these in Sacramento. Oh yeah. I mean this was a mobile post office. They would pick up the mail from each depot and then sort it and get it ready to go to wherever its destination was along its route. By location and zip code? Yeah. If it was even zip code back then, it probably wasn't even zip code. See these would just all be different towns probably. See right here the mail bags would be hung and the mail would be sorted here and it would either transfer to another mail bag if it was going someplace else or if it was along the line. It possibly would end up in one of those bins or into something where it would end up at another location like here. This one would have went to Myrtle Beach or Sumter County. Nashville. Yeah. So wherever this train was traveling between, mail would be picked up and sorted and ready for the next destination. And sometimes it would be a whole bag and sometimes it might have been maybe something else. We finished our afternoon at Steamtown USA in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Actually we got here this morning and stayed through the afternoon. A little rain this morning and now it's beautiful outside. Just a bit windy. Yeah just a bit windy. It's really a great place to visit. Yeah it is and you do definitely want to take the tour when you get here of the engine shops. The shop tour. Yep because that gives you a lot of history and everything. And then you want to take the walk the catwalk through the round table or the roundhouse. And if you happen to be lucky and you come here when big boy's here, the two big boys, that's just a bonus. But it's definitely worth coming even without that. I think we're going to come back sometime. There's still one big boy that is permanently housed here which you can stand in line and get up and look at the cab area. Right and from what I understand when we were talking to the ranger was talking, typically this place is not as busy as right now. I heard someone say that in the past week they've had as many visitors here as they would typically get in a year. Oh wow. Well this is because the big boy 4014 is also here on a stop across country and it'll be here until June the 30th. Right so definitely worth putting on your bucket list of places to go visit. If you if you like this video please give it a big thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed to our channel already please do so. It's for travels and remember to hit that hype button. It helps us out a great deal. It really does and hit that bell for notifications so you know when we post new videos. And until the next time we will see you guys down the road. Bye!