by waaytoomuchintothis » Fri Jul 19, 2013 5:03 pm
There's nothing like it. I was in Chama, NM once, and they were working on a Cumbres and Toltec locomotive in the steam shops. I got to help with the broaching machine reaming the crown plate back to tolerance, and that was a huge thrill. On the way back through from my trip, they let me shovel coal to stoke that locomotive up to leave the shops. I was in the cab, sweating like a real man for ten minutes, and was allowed to ride in the cab for the 50 feet or so that took it out of the shops to where the road crew got on to hitch it up and go to work. That was indescribable. These days, I couldn't get more than a couple of shovels of coal in the butterfly doors before passing out.