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0700 on Saturday morning finds the Heisler being towed out of the engine house by diesel 101. It will take about two and a half hours to prepare the locomotive for the day's runs. |
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Looking more like it has just backed out of a tunnel, this is a view of the locomotive taken from inside the Heisler shed. |
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First order of business is to clean the smokebox of the bits of charred wood from the previous weekend's runs. While the Heisler leaves no ash in her firebox, she does suck glowing embers through her tubes while running. These embers are stopped by the screen on the stack and fall back down into the smokebox and stack trap. Yours truly is pictured here removing the bolts that hold the smokebox door closed. |
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Much of the approximately 5 gallons of partially burnt wood can be reached with a small shovel through the smokebox door. |
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Some can only be reached by a little smokebox diving.
(Nice shot, Jerry, we WILL get even.) |
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This stack was designed and fabricated based on pictures of a similar stack used on the Heisler shortly after she was delivered to the W. H. Eccles Lumber Company in 1915. Embers drawn through the boiler tubes are stopped by the screen on top of the stack. They then fall down the lower conical sheet of the stack and are collected in a trap. Here I'm poking a stick into the trap to coax these once glowing embers into the collection bucket. |
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With the smokebox and stack cleaned out and buttoned back up, it's time to lay the fire. |
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The small pile of paper and kindling takes off quickly and larger sticks of wood are added until the whole floor of the firebox is covered with wood. |