Chapter 35: "Returning Crew Meets Tom," Pt 1

Work Train near Strelna   --Van Cleve photo        It was time to return home.  Some track work remained, but section foreman  Jack Corey deemed all of the major repairs completed between Long Lake and the  Copper River crossing. The three skeel-eh volunteered to be included in the first lay-off.  They would jump a ride on the maintenance engine, consolidation no.21, when it returned to Chitina for routine oiling in the pit.   Charles planned to help on his mother’s fishwheel, as he did every summer, while Cap and Johnny needed to prepare themselves for their return to Kennecott.            Number 21 was to head off to Chitina towing only its caboose.   Johnny talked engineer Albert Dalton into letting him ride up front in the locomotive cab.  The engine was an American Locomotives Rhode Island 85 ton consolidation--a 2-8-0. That was the designation for an engine with eight drive wheels and two leading ones,  with no trailing wheels  under the cab and firebox.             There were four of them in the system--20 through 23, built in 1907 with sequential serial numbers as part of an order of equipment originally destined for China.  These were the most powerful engines on the roster until 1915 when the first Mikados arrived.  Because of their special wheel arrangement, they were best suited to  head the ore trains.  The problem was that it normally required two of these engines hooked up in tandem--a process called “double-heading”--to pull a line of thirty-five loaded ore cars.  CRNW Engine #23: Above: Gloria Day photo / Below: Percy Conrad photo           It soon became obvious that it would be far more efficient to simply buy newer, more powerful engines.  By 1915 the new Mikado had proven to be a good candidate for this type of operation.   The Mikado was the name for an engine with the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement.  The first engines with this wheel arrangement were built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for a Japanese railroad company.  The ALCO-Brooks model weighed 95 tons and was equipped with super heaters which made more efficient use of the steam it generated.             The first three of these arrived in 1915 and 1916 just in time for an anticipated jump in copper production.   In that year ore production took a leap  from 81,104 tons requiring 90 trains of thirty cars each for the year to 177,916 tons of ore that would require 198 trains pulling the same load.  The vastly increased mine output  meant the train consists would now require thirty-five loaded flat cars instead of thirty, just to keep up with the demand.  Two more of the Mikados were added in 1917.  With the arrival of the Mikados, the CRNW Railway began running two distinct trains on the same track.            The Mainline, or Cordova Local, ran from the Alaska Steamship wharf to Chitina. The Chitina Local was the temporary Bonanza branch line to Kennecott. The company built the mining branch line to less strict engineering standards than the mainline, using lighter rail and tighter curves with heavier grades, but overtime the distinction between the branch line and the mainline was lost. The use of the concurrent trains doubled the capacity of the line.            The trains would meet in Chitina, switching name designations and continuing on down the line.  The arrangement began in 1916 and continued for the remaining twenty-two years of railroad operation.   It enabled daily service throughout the system as long as conditions permitted.            In 1936 the boiler on no. 71 blew up while the engine was at the service bay in Chitina, killing the fireman and seriously burning the engineer. The engine was hauled back to Cordova and permanently sidelined there, leaving the other four to carry the load.  The fifth Mikado was no longer essential due to the diminished requirements of mine production.            As the four consolidations were no longer needed for mainline service, they were commonly to be found running the work trains, including the rotary snow plow consists.   Since all the moguls were now used as switch engines and pushers stationed at Cordova, Chitina and Shushanna Junction, usually the CRNW used one of the consolidations for small passenger train consists. CRNW engine #70, a 2-8-2 Mikado, photographed in Washington in 1940, sold to the Midland Terminal Railway as #62 in 1940, then to the Nor-Oeste de Mexicano as #200 in 1948 where it was ultimately scrapped. Built in 1915, one of five similar CRNW engines of the 70-series.    --Charles E. Winters           The 20-series Rhode Islands were impressive engines with drive wheels that  were fifty-six inches tall. The cab was high above the tracks, with a commanding view.   Above the long boiler were two large sand domes as well as the huge steam dome.  They were stately and majestic machines, indeed.            Finally Johnny had the ride he had dreamed of since he was ten. he had the engineer’s view from the cab of one of the great Rhode Island engines.  He assisted the fireman, but was more interested in just watching the a view he could only imagine until now, as the locomotive worked its way through the lower Chitina River valley.  The mountains to the south and west, like much of the region were dramatic, the effect enhanced by the relative closeness.             It  was an experience beyond anything he could imagine.  The effect of seeing all this mountain scenery from the control deck of the eighty-five ton engine rumbling with its obviously powerful pistons over the widely-spaced  steel rails while the wind whipped by his face as the engine advanced rapidly down the gentle slope past Strelna Lake left Johnny beside himself with not a care in the world.             Just behind in the caboose,  Cap was sharing the cupola with Charles. Matt had prepared some of his famous coffee which both young men were sipping.            “Your older brother’s having the time of his life up there, Charles. He’ll be up the clouds long after we arrive in Chitina.”            “It’s what he’s always dreamed, Cap.  He never could stop talking about the iron horse machines when he was a kid.”           “He still hasn’t stopped.  He says less, but never stops admiring them. They seem to take him out there somewhere no one can see.”             Down below Kay-yew-nee was studying the conductor. The boys had left the dog behind at Chitina, but the Siberian mutt had worked his way up the tracks, finding Johnny and Cap two days later.   He was not about to be left out.  Cap was considering this problem of having the dog follow them all the way up the line to Kennecott, where he would no doubt be shot. CRNW caboose & work crew somewhere south of Chitina   --Cordova Museum Continue