Joshua Tree & Southern Narrow Gauge Railroad: Road Trip to Train Mountain May 2012

Peter Moseley wrote a story on the trip to Train Mountain, and he graciously allowed us to spread it around as a JT Road Trip. We had a great time at the meet. Jimmy Booth's brand new C-16 #223, his RMI #50, Ron's propane fired #278 and Bill & Holly Boller's "bee" along with Ray and Becky's #18 Mogul and #50 gasser made up our local group. Gil Gross rode up with Ron and I and Jimmy had a couple of friends from Ukiah. Bill Dobbs and Dennis Weaver had been there for some time. There were only three other steamers there, one a large sweet creek like propane fired engine with oversize D&RG cars. It ran very nicely. Bill Dobbs didn't run his K-36. The folks at TM were very accommodating and welcoming and the atmosphere was good. The weather was nice and things ran well. Jimmy Booth had been working 16-17 hour days on the engine for the prior three weeks getting 223 ready and it ran flawlessly. There was an issue with the cross head support mountings, but a few hours on the mill in the back shop and we modified the bars and made new mounting blocks and fixed a weakness. The engine fires like mad and Jimmy had the firebox door open and the injectors running coming up the Serpentine. So a great opening weekend for the engine. We used Ron's propane fired engine to go across the way into Friends Land (my term). The track work they have done there is amazing and a really wonderful ride. It took us 6 hours to do the very scenic loop including some water stops and a lunch break. We learned a few things about Ron's engine on propane and were able to make some tweaks after the long ride that improved the steaming. We had too much draft going up the hills and too much cool air was being pulled into the firebox so it couldn't keep up. Someone suggested putting an extension on the blast nozzle so that the exhaust was up in the smokestack to further kill the draft. This made the engine run much better. Surprisingly the bark was really loud and I had to wear ear plugs to run the engine. I will calm it down by enlarging the hole in the end cap I have on the extension pipe. For all the running we did we only used about 8 gallons of propane. We were worried we would run out, but had almost 1/2 half our capacity still in the tanks when were done. The timing is off on the engine and needs to have a real cure. Between Bill, Ron and I we purchased 45 bags of char from Bill Dobbs. Added to our existing stock it is enough for the rest of our lives and then some I suspect. Sharon was in attendance and seems very earnest in her desire to keep the place going. She appears to be living there now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. But we got the sense that, one way or another, TM was here to stay. So a great meet that was very lightly attended. Don't be afraid of going to TM. It's still a great place. Peter, Ron & Gil