Pusher by Shaffers

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Gordon,
Thanks for that great little story!
I know the territory well and I can easily visualize an eastbound struggling through the crossovers , flanges screaming. But the sight and sounds of an A and Y , double-heading, was only a vision. Now, you have made it come alive! And the side story of the Roundhouse employees is priceless. Like a schoolboy peaking out a window at a passing train. The Foreman must have been proud too, otherwise, like an official of a later generation he would have been scolding the men to "get back to work"!
Keep your remembrances coming!
Jeff Sanders



On Sunday, August 19, 2018, 10:48:21 PM EDT, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
   
Others have pointed out how in steam days on the N&W coal trains would leave West Yard in Roanoke with a Class A road engine next to the train and a Class Y6x helper in the front, and how a pusher engine would be coupled on at Boaz siding to assist the two other engines for the climb up to Blue Ridge where the pusher would cut off and return to Boaz while the road engine and helper engine would proceed to Phoebe where the Y6x helper engine would cut off leaving the high-drivered Class A road engine to hurry the train on to Norfolk.  But, there is a bit more to this operation that needs telling, because I experienced it while working in the Shaffers Crossing roundhouse the summer of 1956.
 
 
For one thing, eastbound coal trains leaving West Yard almost immediately faced an adverse grade of nearly 0.4% for about 3/4 mile, ending at the Shaffers Crossing roundhouse, where the grade began descending eastward.  This created a spectacle of sight and sound as the engines came just a hundred feet of so from the open roundhouse windows while attempting to accelerate the tonnage coal train on the ascending grade.  The spectacle was so great that numerous roundhouse employees would stop what they were doing and rush to the open windows to see the show.  These were not railfans, but machinists, pipefitters, electricians, laborers, etc.  They were simply people who were fascinated by the raw power of these mighty machines, and many also probably felt more than a little pride in their role in helping to make it all work.
 
On occasions there would be a train of empty hopper cars parked on a track between the roundhouse and the track used by the coal train, completely blocking the view of the departing coal train as seen from the lower elevation of the roundhouse floor.  On those occasions only the strong exhaust smoke from the engines would be visible over top of the hopper cars, and I observed something unusual.   There was a difference between the way the two engines discharged their smoke.  The road engine would discharge its smoke straight up whereas the helper engine would discharge its smoke upward and forward.  I eventually learned that the Class Y6x exhaust nozzle and stack were angled 10 degrees forward in order to clear the front-end throttle and superheater header mounted near the top of the smoke box behind the stack, whereas the Class A smoke box arrangement allowed the convention vertical nozzle and exhaust stack.  I am just glad that I had the experience shortly before the drama disappeared forever.
 
 
Gordon Hamilton
 
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