Big Boy at Gerlach
Apr. 10th, 2026 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayla_allenLisa gave me the footage she shot this past Tuesday at Gerlach, Nevada. I posted it to Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories in a new playlist.
Some notes about the train:
It's going slow here because it's about to make its "whistle stop" at Gerlach. The crew has to inspect the train periodically because the lineside "hotbox" detectors are useless when you have a very hot steam locomotive passing over them. They therefore schedule short "whistle stops" that also give people a chance to see the train.
You'll see a couple of diesel locomotives in the consist. These are primarily to assist in dynamic braking (similar to down-shifting a manual transmission). Steam trains do not have dynamic brakes, which work on a diesel by turning the electric motors into generators.
Some notes about the train:
It's going slow here because it's about to make its "whistle stop" at Gerlach. The crew has to inspect the train periodically because the lineside "hotbox" detectors are useless when you have a very hot steam locomotive passing over them. They therefore schedule short "whistle stops" that also give people a chance to see the train.
You'll see a couple of diesel locomotives in the consist. These are primarily to assist in dynamic braking (similar to down-shifting a manual transmission). Steam trains do not have dynamic brakes, which work on a diesel by turning the electric motors into generators.
