Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec - FriendsOfCumbresToltec.org

Hello friends of the C&TS. Glad to be with you all.

Consider this my virgin post.... or maybe question. I have tried searching for an answer on the web, but have yet to find it. I notice that the D&S locos have airpumps mounted on the face of the smokebox, but the C&TS do not. Im guessing the locos with the pumps mounted on the face were for a specific part of the rail network?

Thank you in advance for any insight you can give. Great to be here.

Brett

Brett, welcome aboard.

I'll spare you the long answer... mostly because I don't know all the specifics off the top of my head.

The short answer is: those are 2 different classes of locomotives. The D&S has K28's (air pump on front) and the C&T does not. Both railroads use K36's (air pump on side).

Thanks Jason... Now I see the error of my ways... I wasnt looking carefully enough at the loco numbers to notice the different classes. Thanks! I still would like to know why that class has the pumps mounted where they are. But perhaps that was just the design at the time.

welcome aboard Brett. The K28s with the air pumps on the front are similar in size to our K27, 463. They were built by Alco instead of Baldwin like our K27 and K36s. Air pump placement seemed to be an afterthought in the design of engines and we're hung anywhere there was room. My favorite was the monkey deck of SP's cab forwards.

I read that they were on the smokebox door to keep the fireman's view unobstructed.

Tom C.

Apparently it was a visiblity problem. A Feb. 2018 post by Earl Knoob on the NGDF explains: http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php ... msg-345049.