Harder than Iron, Colder than Steel

Long-time Texas residents know to keep one eye warily turned to the sky, to regard the horizon with suspicion. The weather is capricious here: A winter day might dawn warm enough for  enough to break a sweat inside of thick cotton overalls, but it’s not uncommon for the temperature to fall severely enough to freeze standing water by the time dusk arrives.  The last time such a forecast was drawn up finds me stationed on the left side of the cab. Which particular locomotive that cab belongs to will remain nameless, this time, but it is in good repair, under full steam, and followed by a train full to the brim with admiring riders.

Knowing that the massive cold front is out there, blustering through Amarillo and Abilene and then Wichita Falls before it comes knocking at Dallas’ door,  puts a little quiver of excitement into the train’s crew and passengers alike. Temperature swings like this sometimes bring violent weather--a rash of tornadoes in advance of an incoming front wracked up a high cost in lives and property damage around this time last year--but fortunately, there is none of that in the forecast this time. The only misadventure in the in the works is bitter cold.  

The change in the weather arrives prematurely, several hours before it is predicted. The first gust of wind slaps the weaker trees vertical, sweeps the fallen leaves upwards so that the bare branches are covered again, slams unsecured doors shut. Our engine sputters and swallows its own fire for a second or two, glistens with droplets of water that has suddenly condensed in the wind,  seems to gasp for warmer air just like the people who huddle down to brace themselves against the front’s knife-edged overture.

 The air falls still for about ten minutes after that first gust, then the wind returns and the gusts come barreling through about twice every minute.  Soon, the ambient temperatures have fallen so dramatically that the wind is only marginally colder than the ambient temperatures. The cold clings to the ground, pools in the little gaps between buildings, leaves our steam locomotive in a mask of its own vapor. Soon has erased every proof that the area was ever warm at all.

We have been overrun by truly arctic temperatures, and by by the time night comes and transitions us to reading our pressure gauges by the light of the fire, the thermometer has ticked down a full forty degrees and the ranks passengers has been culled. Our locomotive is also of a Southern heritage, and if it had hands it would also raise them up to the sky and protest the indignity of Arctic air venturing this far beyond its usual territory. It lags in building heat just as our blood is sluggish through our veins. The gusts that send us burrowing our faces underneath our collars creep into the firebox and make the engine bellow out towering plumes of black smoke.We are desperate enough for warmth that we begin wrapping our hands around the live steam pipes, letting the warmth seep through our gloves and into our hands.

Making any steam locomotive work properly is a game of balancing the  many internal and external that contribute to the fire's proper burning, and great skill is required to produce the most efficient results even in the best of circumstances.  When cold temperatures put many of those factors in flux--the ambient external  temperature, humidity, the viscosity of the fuel, many other things-- there is a very noticeable difference in performance. There is abject discomfort for men and machine alike on a night like this one, enough of it to prevent any philosophical rumination on the fact that steam locomotives are capable and comfortable in the same range of temperatures that humans are.

The conditions do, though,  prompt more than a few observations that tonight’s crew is getting a taste of real railroading is and always has been. Our counterparts moving vital cargo over the general network aren’t in the job for the fun of it, like we are. For them, there will be no halting if the weather becomes brutal enough, no hope that operations will pause if the cold thins the numbers of riders below a certain point. There was even more to endure in the 'golden' age of railroading, back when our engine was freshly minted. The farther back in history one goes the more dangerous the job was, the fewer protections existed to buffer workers against bad circumstances and poor employers, the more remote and isolated was the territory the tracks ran through. Endurance is the face of railroading, then and now.   We are playacting, making entertainment of finding the point where we bend, but our counterparts have strengthened themselves to be colder and harder than iron. 

It’s no wonder that the people who make railroading happen capture our imaginations just as much as the machines. The thrill of it isn’t just in the operation and mechanical complexity of some of the most powerful vehicles on Earth. It’s also in knowing that the people that operate them are just as durable as the machines themselves. 

That is something you can't help but admire.