Our O scale friend Big John& the Work posted photos of his recently-arrived, and beautiful, Sunset 3rd Rail F3A and F3B in Northern Pacific passenger livery. While I was admiring the photos, I noticed the winterization hatch over the rear cooling fan of each unit, and that got me thinking about winter and the Northern Pacific.
The prototype NP F3's served for 24 years at the head end of passenger trains, and that's 24 long, cold winters in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Long icicles hung from the chicken wire over the radiator intake openings for days at a time, only melting after the units got to experience temperatures above freezing west of Spokane.
I have always admired the way NP maintained its diesel locomotives. The railroad did not clobber the carbodies up with after-market accessories or blank out the portholes or install any home shop gewgaws. They remained "stock" although I'm sure they installed some of the EMD upgrades to the diesel engines, and maybe added automatic transition to the F3's. In a Northern Pacific winter, reliability was important. Dead engines and arctic temperatures are not very well matched. So, I will say a kind word about the Northern Pacific Railroad and its Mechanical Department.
And I must tip my hat to the NP operating employees and their supervisors and dispatchers. Those well maintained diesels would not have made a move in winter without a Brakeman using a switch broom to chisel and sweep the ice from turnouts. NP Train Dispatchers, even though inside steam heated buildings, worked together with road crews to get trains over the road in winter. And Northern Pacific Locomotive Engineers had to "know the air" in winter as well as in summer. (There's a world of difference). From Montana westward, NP Engineers had to be good mountain grade Engineers, because their railroad had a number of tough mountain crossings, unlike the comparatively moderate grades of competitor Great Northern. NP took the hard route to the northwest. All of its challenging territory created a culture of "getting it done," so the NP operating men would never be lifted up as examples of strict rules compliance, though they were skilled and dependable.
A long ago photo in Trains, of a Northern Pacific freight F3 (or was it an FT?) sitting ready for departure, covered in clear ice, was the seed that grew into my admiration for NP and its people. I can imagine being a NP Engineer, in bed in February under quilts, and getting called on duty at 2:00 AM. While he would take a quick shower, and then dress in several layers of clothing, his wife would be filling his Thermos with hot coffee and frying up a quick breakfast, which he would eat only after going outside and starting up his car, which would have been equipped with a block heater. While the engine on the car came up to operating temperature, he would return to the kitchen, eat the breakfast, and kiss his wife good bye.
Upon arrival at the Register Room at the passenger station, he would register his watch and check to see if the Fireman had registered both of them on duty. The Conductor would go over the Train Orders with him, and they would discuss the weather until the Operator stuck his head into the Register Room and announced, "He's on the bell."
The Engineer and Fireman would walk outside and down the platform to the spot where the engine would stop. Looking in the direction the train would arrive from, they could see the Mars light of Big John's F3, the 6503A, wigwagging as the train topped a mild hill and made the straight-in approach to the station stop. As soon as the train stopped, the inbound Engineer extinguished the Mars light and dimmed the headlight, the Mechanical Department employees applied a blue flag and light, and connected water hoses to the diesel units and the water baggage car. Meanwhile, the well-rehearsed changing of crews would have begun: the inbound crew tossed their grips down to the Fireman, who caught them, and then tossed his own and the outbound Engineer's grips up to the inbound Fireman, for placement in the cab. The inbound crewmen each slid down the handrail on one hand. The trio of F3's glistened with a covering of ice, clear icicles hanging from the air screens and below the frames. The Engineers would exchange advice about the train, "The boiler on the second unit keeps going off line. Fireman had to drop a fusee in her twice. Other than that she's a puller. The air's pretty tight for this time of year." The Engineer and Fireman would then place gloved hands onto handrails that were half again their normal size, because of ice, and carefully climb the side ladder into the cab, where both heater fans would be whirring. As soon as the cab door was closed, the soothing sound of an idling 567 series EMD engine would be heard, heavy jackets would be hung on the rear wall, and the Fireman would walk through the engine rooms to check the water and governor oil sight glasses on each engine, as well as the condition of the steam generators. Snow which had been swirled up by the turbulence of the train would have come in through the chicken wire screens, an inch or more of it covering places on the walkway through the engine room of each unit. "All good," he would report to the Engineer after coming back to the cab of the front unit.
Ahead, a semaphore blade stood erect, its green light waiting for the passenger train. A Mechanical Department employee removed the blue flag and banged the lantern a couple of times against the pilot, to call the Engineer's attention. The Fireman, watching down the platform in the side mirror, called, "Highball." "Highball," the Engineer repeated, as he switched the headlight to bright and turned on the Mars light, sounded two short blasts of the air horn, put the F3's in Run-1, moved the 24-RL automatic brake valve to Release, moved the independent brake valve to Release and bailed down momentarily, with a sharp exhaust of air reporting that he had released the downward pressure. He moved the automatic brake valve back to Running, as the train inched into forward movement. He turned on the sander valve, which hissed and spit sour smelling condensation into the cab, moved the throttle to Run-2, then Run-3, then Run-5. Now the train would be moving at about 15 MPH. He would have made a running air brake test by applying the train brakes until he felt resistance, then released them, and brought the throttle directly to Run-8. The Fireman would have seen a lantern wag a highball from one of the vestibules of the train, and called "Highball the running air test." The Engineer would have turned off the sanders. and called Clear, as the train passed the semaphore and the 6503A made transition, picking up speed into the frigid prairie night.
Winter and the Northern Pacific . . . they were inseparable for six months of each year. A toast, to the people who managed and operated Northern Pacific. ("The view is terrific, on Northern Pacific.")
Thanks for starting me thinking about all this, John. I have really enjoyed the memories and musings.
