jensenracing77

What a great video. My grandfather was huge into trains. I always liked them but now that he is gone I have taken a much bigger interest in them. I sure wish I did this while he was still here.

If you watch the video, How would you like to have the big guy swinging the hammer mad at you?

MDchanic

Wow.

The thing that strikes me is how primitive the manufacturing process was for its time.
Look at one of the videos of the Fisher Body plant that are out there, and instead of a bunch of guys standing around and getting sprayed by molten steel, or pulling and tugging on ropes, Fisher looks like a modern factory.

Small wonder they needed a hand defeating the Hun.

- Eric

oldcutlass

Awesome video. You should see how they build airplanes.

costpenn

Eric, besides blue 70 W-30's something else we both love. I have been a steam locomotive nut since I was 8 years old. One of my greatest experiences was getting to run #40 in Nevada on the "Be The Engineer" program they have. It was just as awesome as I had dreamed it would be! Maybe if we could get a minute at the Nats we could go up to the museum in Green Bay?

tru-blue 442

Cool vid. Thanks for the share.

Intragration

That film was unbelievably cool, thanks for posting it. Ha ha, 70 tons of hydraulic ram, five tons of molten iron, and not a set of safety glasses or steel toed shoes to be found. The moustachioed smith was classic. I was surprised because I never knew steam locomotives had internal cylinders. I guess I figured all the driving force was applied to the external hardware. Anyway, very interesting.

rcorrigan5

I had the good fortune of having a grandfather who was a rail logger from the 19teens to the 1960s. When I was a little kid in the 50s, grandpa would put my brother and me on steam engines carrying loads of logs to the log pond and we would get to ride it some 12 miles or so. And sometimes we got on the empty run return to the woods. We got to be such regulars that the fireman would let us do some of the work, like provide feed water to the boiler, and so forth. It was a lot of fun for us and I'm glad we got to experience it before the steam engines were phased out in favor of diesel electric engines in the late 1950s/early 60s. The pics below are of my brother and me on the old #5 out of Camp 12 near Siletz, OR, taken around 1958. Great video!


Randy C.

jensenracing77

Very cool Randy! When I was little my dad was a dragline operator and took me on the dragline a couple times. People just can not comprehend how big they are till they see it in person. Memories I will never forget like yours.

jensenracing77

I would love to go but I promised the wife I would make no plans for anything other than eating. She wants to use this trip to lounge around the entire time and not do anything. I am not likely even going to the drag races if they are haveing them again this year. We plan to take our kids to St Louis later in the summer or fall to the transportation museum. Green Bay and St Louis both have UP Big Boy's. UP is restoring one of the Big Boys and I am excited to see it. I think it is going to be oil fired.

wr1970

In abilene Kansas they have a ride on a steam engine train and a coke/coal fired engine. I wish i could post a pic of it but computor dumb! It is on line i think. Check out abilene days!

costpenn

That would be ATSF 3415 - to me one of the most beautiful engines to be returned to steam after the N&W 611. Has a great sounding whistle as well.

wr1970

You do know i am talking two separate train engines! My wife road on the coal/coke fired. I missed it i had to work!

m371961

Wow. Maybe the lack of safety equipment is what created the "greatest generation". The stupid and careless were weeded out in industrial accidents. Liked the use of shop personnel as the counterweight when the plate was on the hoist.
Thanks, enjoyed it.

illumined

From what I can determine it seems the Fisher video was made in the 50's while this one was made in 1938. A lot can change in 20 years.......

MDchanic

No, there's a different Fisher Body film from the mid-thirties.

I can't look for it now, but I'll see if I can find it later.

- Eric

MDchanic

I couldn't find the film I was looking for, but I found these, which I think are interesting on their own, but especially when compared with the film linked in the first post.



- Eric

MDchanic

And here's one more. It's a bit rhetorical, but, still, it shows what this country once was, back before the MBAs decided it was cheaper to make everything in China.

If it were filmed now, it would show the average Joe getting up at 06:00, passing his wife as she gets home from her midnight shift at the 7-11, going to work at McDonald's, then finishing up there and going to work at WalMart for the second half of the day.


- Eric

Destructor

I love steam locomotives. A group in England runs a new built A1 Pacific. It is run on excursions.

Koda

The Fisher body plants look outdated compared to modern ones. Not as much as the locomotive plant.

I like the video. Some of the stuff they did is remarkably simple, just writ large in impressively big scope. The counterweight crew was an amusing solution. I was impressed that there were so few pages of drawings and specs, the engine is not really all that complicated, it's just huge.

I truly wonder what a modern, oil burner, steam locomotive would look like. If they could ever make nuclear, either fusion or fission, safe enough for intra-continental travel, we could see a nuke powered steam engine, which is what most Navy vessels are powered by.

jensenracing77

It is already safe enough but you will never get it past the public opinion of it. I would bet that fuel is still less money to operate on something like this?

illumined

Indeed. I can't help but wonder if that's just a result of the train factory being older (a possibility) or just because our production techniques were just that far ahead of them.


The problems nuclear has are definitely not technical, but rather are political.

Koda

I'm not sure, Eric. I think the reason the Navy ships go nuke is so they don't have to refuel. Train engines can, so maybe it is cheaper to run diesel power. I like nuclear, and understand it fairly well, but I am not sure that it is safe or portable enough to be in a train wreck and not melt down. Perhaps the best thing is stationary power plants and electric engines on third rails.

Illum, you're right, but it is more complicated than most other power forms even though it is basically just a sterling engine.

Destructor

Water is the problem with steam locomotives, the steam isn't condensed and recycled. They have to stop for water and that water isn't always good quality. A ship has condensers as well as purification equipment.