A "modernized" replica. With the afternoon sun sinking rapidly toward the horizon, the Northern Central Railway's York 17 prepares to depart our last photo location and head back to New Freedom for the night. The 17's engineman sits tall in the saddle as he opens the cylinder cocks to release any liquid water, prior to opening the throttle.
This angle provides the viewer with some close-up details of the York's running gear, and a sneak peek at some of the practical modifications that had to be made to the 1860s Rogers design that this locomotive represents. As has been noted in captions of some of my other photos of this locomotive, certain authenticity compromises had to be made in its design, in order to end up with a machine that would meet all current Federal safety standards, and be capable of reliably operating in regular, daily service. One obvious compromise is brakes. Locomotives built in the 1850s and 1860s didn't come with air brakes. In fact, the hand brake on the tender is about all of the brakes most of them had. Crews quite regularly put such engines into reverse to create friction to stop them. It was far from ideal. As can be seen in this image, York has a rather beefy air brake assembly between her two driver sets and she has an air pump on the fireman's side. If you look forward of the drivers, you'll see what looks like a cross-head pump, which was used back in the day to pump from the tender into the boiler. Unfortunately, cross-head pumps require the locomotive to be in motion to work, which again, is far from ideal. On York 17, the cross-head pump you see is actually a fake. Up in the cab, she has steam-powered injectors on both sides, which can be used when moving or stationary. And finally, that box headlamp up front looks pretty authentic, but instead of housing a period-correct oil lamp, it has an incandescent bulb, which is powered by a generator hidden in the tender. That same generator powers lights in the cab, so the crew can see their water glass and steam gauge at night.
