April 14, Jim and Jimmy Scott, Greg Wapelhorst, Rich Owings (maybe others) continued to grease and inspect cars. Don Miller and Dennis Smith were on site. Hank Welch and Mike Lorance poured cement for the new propane tank foundation. A concrete truck arrived at 8 AM.  They poured the two pits for the propane tank pad.  Then they poured a small section of concrete coming out the Carbarn walk door. Concrete blocks for the new retaining wall at Summit arrived and were unloaded next to the tracks. This is definitely a close clearance/slow order area. Blocks weigh nearly 100# and will be a challenge to place in the new wall. Matt Horn removed the smoke box cover on 535 to gain access to the leaking throttle valve. Tom White cut off the old throttle extension rod and mounting sleeve on 928. Jim Strain and Brad George will try to test fire 400 on Saturday. If we are lucky we might be asked to pull one of the TrailNet/Wildwood specials. It will be a thrill to finally have a live steam loco on the road since I became SMP. My plan was to have more locos under steam at this time but the rest will come soon. TCW-SMP

April 17, Saturday was busy with providing commuter train service for TrailNet. Crews sold one way tickets for $2.00 and hauled hikers down to they Yeatman Wye area where the new Wildwood branch, Rock Hollow, hiking trail started. Hikers could then buy a ticket from "Mr. Conductor", Jim Greathouse, for a return trip to Glencoe if they wanted.

I’m not going to try to capture any serious detail of the efforts that went into getting 400 running this weekend. There was a lot of hard work, fiddling and deep thought by a number of people. Brad and Jim finished minor work on 400 and lit the fire about 12:00. She steamed well but had injector problems which were eventually brought under sufficient control to take a run. Brad put her in reverse and opened the throttle. Nothing happened. She was welded to the rails. We pushed her back and forth. Nothing happened. Much time was spent looking at possible causes. Nothing helped. About that time Dennis Neidrauer showed up to look at the firebrick in 928. He is also a member of the local live steamers group and is building an engine of his own. They have a member who is experienced with timing valve gear so Dennis called him. We followed the advice and made minor adjustments with no success. Finally we hooked up the 13 and pulled 400 to the loading area. This freed her enough that she started to run on her own. The valve gear expert arrived and found no obvious problems. Brad ran the engine around the yard then filled the water and oil tanks. We took off to the “Wye” with three cars. It ran well but on the return started to make a squeak like a there was a dry or tight bearing somewhere. More looking and checking including checking the lubricator. We decided to end the effort and put her to bed. After she cooled on the appropriate RoundHouse lead we tried to push her inside. She was “frozen” and no hand pushing would budge her. We finally shoved her in with the 13. TCW-SMP

April 18, Brad and Jack arrived early and found several problems with 400 including tight pins on the eccentric rod on one side and seriously plugged snifter valves. These were corrected and Brad was able to push the engine by hand. Brad lit the fire and we waited for pressure. She ran by herself so the tanks were topped off and we asked the MOW group that was moving trainloads of 100 lb. concrete blocks for the retaining wall to summit if we could pull their train. We hooked the 400, our 3 passenger cars to four cars with at least 1,000 pounds of blocks on each car, the 13 and the MOW passenger cars and took off for summit. Grumpy assisted in getting up the grade to Meramec Jct. with 13 then turned the train over to 400. She slipped a lot but Brad brought her under control and ran her fast! I have never heard that engine or any other at Glencoe bark that loudly. The echo off the bluffs was spectacular. We turned heads on the  trail that afternoon. What a thrill!. We dropped the work train at Summit and went to the “Wye” and up the extension. Several more trips were made and more problems were found which will be corrected next Saturday but it looks like we have one steam engine for shakedown and opening day. The 400 crew felt pretty damn good. To make the day even better Steve came out and with the help of Clayton and Jim Greathouse put the 928’s  boiler back on the frame. With the boiler solidly attached we can now start to reassemble the engine. While we were having “fun” Joe Christen slaved away in the RH trying to repair the throttle valve on 535. Joe concluded that the valve needed to be replaced. It was great having Joe (another experienced steam man) back on the team again! Even our esteemed colleague (and last of the original WF&P founders) Don Miller was on site and assisted both the MOW team and the RH team. He even put some miles on his bike on the trails. If I even make it to his age (89 years young) I hope I’m half as fit as Don! It was great having him on site. He will be back for a couple weeks in June. What a weekend! TCW-SMP

 

#13 arrives with four brake flats (minus their wooden seats) to start the day by transferring 100 pound landscape stones from their pallets to the work train. There are 36 stones per pallet and there are seven pallets to be moved up to Summit where the old railroad tie wall is being replaced.

With each stone weighing in at 100 pounds, we started with 9 stones placed on a car.
We then decided it was easier to place 10 on two of the car followed by 8 on two of the cars.

One stone goes on upside down while a second stone is then placed on top.

Once all four cars are loaded, it's off to Summit to restack at the work site.
They do look like a new style of weather proof seating but not any softer to sit on.

With the work train heading east, there was still a lot of action at Glencoe.
Several hikers hang out at the pavilion to watch.
#535 is on the turntable with the smokebox door removed. Work is in progress to locate a leak.