Nepacrossroads Keeps the Fire in Old Colony Newport Railway

Since this was a pretty big undertaking (since it was done with zero $$$) with a lot of help from many Forum members I thought its deserving of a thread outside Crane Stoves Section.

Old Colony Railway is a historic railroad from the 1880's that still uses hand fired coal stoves to heat their passenger cars http://www.ocnrr.com/
Its a pretty good "take" for folks to get a feel for the old bygone days if anyone is interested, The first class cabin in front of the stove is where my seats are! (its run by volunteer's which makes it even more special).

Old Colony asked for some help from NepaCrossroads and once again... we all jumped in with both feet for the chance!

big thanks to Coalvet & his wood burner bro for doing the dirty work.
thanks to my good friend Larry Trainer for his donation of supplying the total refurb on the stove.
thanks to our very own onedollar for making sure Larry had the Jr. we needed so badly.
thanks to are mayor Richard for the many years of hard work and effort to begin such a forum for us all long ago. (bet he never fathomed the broad reaching help it would someday give)
thanks to the volunteers of Old Colony railway and Charlie in particular for his graciousness & free lunch for the group

I felt bad after 30 years of that Crane 44 finally giving out (but it was the right decision to change it out after such good service in a very harsh environment)... Charlie said that Crane put out heat so well people sometimes sat by the rear door of the cabin car ...it was time to let it rest in peace

at the same time Coalvet did the right thing and replaced the entire flu & baro so they are going to enjoy the new set up for many years to come

I will post the few photo's I took and Rich can add his here when he can (original thread is Repairing Liner in Crane Cooker Used in RR Car?)

Nice post Doug. Years ago my parents took me for a scenic train ride in RI. I wonder if this was it? How long have they been around? Little ashamed I didn't know about them seeing how I am a railroader and buff. Maybe I can take the kids after Christmas. I see they have runs starting the day after Christmas. Been wanting to take the wife to see the Newport mansions anyway. Thanks again. Matt

DePippo79 wrote:Nice post Doug. Years ago my parents took me for a scenic train ride in RI. I wonder if this was it? How long have they been around? Little ashamed I didn't know about them seeing how I am a railroader and buff. Maybe I can take the kids after Christmas. I see they have runs starting the day after Christmas. Been wanting to take the wife to see the Newport mansions anyway. Thanks again. Matt

they are categorized as a museum and have been running for decades (as long as I've been around anyways), The routes have changed somewhat over the years. they run year round on weekends I believe, but their busy time (and I think best time) is between xmass and new years. We only had this brief window while this particular car was sitting at the navel yard to "get er done" in middleton... here is the view outside the window from the train...

Doug, I already posted info and pics in the Crane directory. Maybe one of the mods could move it to here.

Rich

Hmmmm,...someone on the forum runs a railroad? Maybe they have some insider knowledge of how to get a rail car full of coal from point A to Point B in New England

This is great...my family and I would love to take a train ride on an old antique train. I will read more information regarding it.

It's really great to see these brought back as part of living history. Not just the trains, but what life was like being on a train. Hats off to you guys !!!!

Paul

BPatrick wrote:This is great...my family and I would love to take a train ride on an old antique train. I will read more information regarding it.

Silverton / Durango narrow gauge in the Colo. Rockies west of Denver. you'll never forget it.

Looks like there was a baro on the Crane 44.

Carbon12 wrote:Hmmmm,...someone on the forum runs a railroad? Maybe they have some insider knowledge of how to get a rail car full of coal from point A to Point B in New England

If you want a car load of coal, you need to call a coal broker who buys from the mines. The broker will set up the arrangements and the contract for the coal purchase. Next thing to do is to contact the railroad company that runs through your area and find out the closest place that has a, "team track." A Team Track is a siding that is for public use. For example, if you own a local lumber yard and order a box car load of lumber, the railroad will set out the car on the team track for you. You have to provide for the unloading and removal of the product. You also have a time limit to get the car unloaded.
A typical hopper car for coal carries 100 tons. So it will be many times cheaper to ship it by rail rather than by truck. You have to get it unloaded and transported to where ever you are going to take it. It is very possible but you need to be set up to do it.

Another note on the post above. I have bought coal for railroad use in steam engines. The major cost of coal, just like anything else; is the transporting of it. Trucking is vastly more expensive than shipping by rail. Ordering a car load of locomotive coal shipped by rail could get it to us for around 30 dollars per ton. Trucking it raised the price to 150 dollars a ton delivered. The major deal with the railroad is having the facilities to unload the cars quickly. After so long you have to pay a per diem on the car, so you want to get it moved as soon as you can. What a lot of big companies do is they own or lease their own cars and they simply avoid a lot of the extra costs of drayage and per diem charges.
What I wanted to do when I was in charge of the railroad, but; never got a chance to do was buy a couple of hopper cars and have them running back and forth to the mines. One would be loaded at our railroad and the other one would be empty on its way back to the mine for reloading. We would have saved a lot of money over time by using this shuttle method of having cars go back and forth to the mine. But the currents of life took me elsewhere and it never happened. I'm sure the prices above are different now than they were then.

That was a damn nice thing all of you did.

Sounds like a great day trip over the Christmas break for me the wife and kids!!! Looks awesome!

Thanks Doug. Told the wife we were taking a trip day after Christmas. I had a very long post about single car coal shipments, but decided not to post. Mr. Herrick is dead on as usual, but just try getting a single car shipped to new england with the railroads available. Woukd have to be in the politics or flame suit section. Matt

Rob R. wrote:Looks like there was a baro on the Crane 44.

Yes, you see correct... it was crazy important for a baro on this set up because as you can imagine a train running down the tracks at 20mph would create a forced draft similar to a combustion blower on a stoker , along with the fact the Crane lower door was cut open to allow for external shaking coalvet & I both knew a Chubby Jr. was the right thing to do here (it was the perfect stove for this application in design, BTU's and accessibility)... Ironically Larry Trainer is my friend and neighbor and I knew he would help enable me to get them the stove they needed. coalvet installed a new baro, heat shields, reducer, pipe with this set up as well (he did a great job!)