So... do you remember... Sierra #3, The Hooterville Cannon Ball? It was a 10 wheeler pulling just a tender and one coach. It spent most of it's time sitting stationary, full head of steam, with an engineer and a fireman, waiting for Kate to come and present a problem that only a steam engine with two cars could help solve. LOL. These were the days when life was much much simpler than now.
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Sierra#3 is the Hollywood locomotive.
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Hmmm. Are you sure? I see some differences in those two engines. Stack, headlight, roof edge are all different. At that point I stopped looking for differences. Could be more.
H
Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.
Sierra #3 was delivered from the factory as a coal burner and after setting many fires in the surrounding dry grass of the railroad in the late summer, was converted to oil in late 1900. This seemed to reduce the amount of fire litigation the Sierra attorney had to deal with. After falling through a weak trestle and rolling over due to a broken rail, the original stack and cab are no longer in existence. The SP supplied a surplus steel cab which still serves today. During a major rebuild 10 years ago, a new welded steel boiler was applied along with a new tender tank as the old tank was filled with holes and no longer capable of being repaired. Today it is sitting quietly in the roundhouse waiting the annual inspection due to start right after the first of January.
There was a wooden mock-up locomotive used by Hollywood during the filming of Petticoat Junction for scenes not needing a real steam locomotive. There are several sheet metal stacks that can be slipped over the straight stack to change the look of the locomotive. We even have a supply of wood in the roundhouse which can be loaded on top of the tender to give the appearance of a wood burning locomotive.
New reproduction builder plates were cast up during the rebuild after the war. With the boiler on the #18 nearing the end of its useful life, they realized that another locomotive of vintage appearance was needed if they were to continue to offer Hollywood producers a steamer. For only a few years did the Sierra offer two vintage looking steamers until the #18 could no longer pass a boiler inspection and it was never given a scheduled rebuild.
The wooden equipment that survives today is all in bad condition and has not seen much use in many years. One of the big problems is the lead based paint which is above the threshold level for lead contamination and will certainly need to be mitigated if restoration is attempted in the future.
The Petticoat Junction water tank is long gone as it was a late steam economy tank constructed with thin wood to save money. A new covered tank was installed to replace the old tank which was not worth the cost of repairs. Last year we had to install some new parts on the new tank valve and seat due to corrosion.
It was always surprising to me , with these hollywood locomotives. How you would see wood stacked on the tender, but the black smoke was obviously oil. ....
LIALLEGHENY wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2019 4:57 am
Just because it is in Wikipedia, doesn't mean it is correct. Misinformation abounds on the internet.
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“The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity.” — Abraham Lincoln
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
