Ed started working on the drawings for the brake rigging and came up with a bunch of questions. Unfortunately he does not have any brake rigging drawings and had to improvise using the erection prints. So, to try and fill in all the missing details, it was off to 2925's haunting grounds to pay a visit to the real thing.
I will freely admit that I am a bit spoiled to have the full-size engine that I am trying to model only a half hour away. Heck, there is another engine #2921 (in much better looking condtion I am told) only 1 1/2 hrs. away. Speaking of 2921, that is the first steam engine that I can ever remember seeing (not counting Knotts Berry Farm) up close in person. (I think that I will number my engine 2921.) I was probably about 11 years old and my dad took his train buddy and I to go see 2921. Turns out that "train buddy" was none other than Ed of "Live Steam God" fame whose path I would later cross in life. Kinda one of those "small world" things....
2925 had been moved since my last visit. She is stored on some tracks owned by the California State Railroad Museum next to a bike trail and the Sacramento River. It looks like they shuffled around some other freight cars and 2925 was moved a bit in the process. It still is a sad thing to see her there all stripped of her boiler jacketing and just rusting away. At least she is not all yet covered in graffiti like all of the other freight cars that were around her. Climbing over her running gear,laying on the ballast and sort of wriggling in under her between the massive drivers revealed all of the missing information. (The driving wheels dont look ALL that big until you are standing next to them and have to look UP to see the top of them. They are huge! Another one of those "amazing facts" for me is that this giant platter of cast iron would rotate fast enough to propel this monster to over 100mph!) For those so inclined, one to the solved mysteries was to determine exactly how the vertical brake cylinders were mounted to the frame. Here is what we found.
