First, the Jones bothers actually have a website:
Second, there is an excellent article by Carl Franz, "Ultimate Steam Dream- The Wolsztyn Experience puts your hand on the throttle" in the January 2008 issue of Railfan and Railroad magazine.
Third, the article was pointed out to me by Wayne K., seen in the cab of the narrow gauge loco below, and made me aware of my misspelling of Carl's name. Sorry about that, Carl. Hope I have it right this time.
OK, now the story:
I heard about the steam museum in Wolsztyn (pronounced VOLE-shten), Poland, a couple of years ago, yet I didn't really understand the setup until I got over there. Ten years ago, when Poland eliminated almost all steam trains, a few British railfans got together and put together a plan where, by offering "driving courses," railfans could help pay for the cost of keeping some steam locomotives in service, while gaining experience driving and firing in revenue service.
Sunday, July 24, 2007 we travelled from Poznan to Wolsztyn . Much to our delight, a steam locomotive was connected to the train- a beautiful 2-6-2. It was part of the Wolsztyn Experience program, so two Americans were in the cab (footplate...) with the Polish crew. It was Wayne and Lee and John was there too. When they started arguing about the merits of various US diesels I went back to the car with the family. So we galloped across the Polish countryside, with coal smoke coming in the windows. The locals were totally uninterested in the locomotive, and seemed annoyed by the smoke.
Sunday night we went to the Wolsztyn Experience house and met Howard Jones, the brother that lives in Poland. The other brother, Trevor, lives in England. I got my assignment, which was the 9:30 run to Poznan, with John.
Monday I walked from the Kaukaska Hotel to the train station and got on the 4-6-0 with Stanislaw and the other crewman and John. We met Howard there, and he gave me the short version of what to do. I bought the obligatory PKP hat ("talked down" to 50 zloty = approx $19.00) and turned down the replica number plates, stationmaster's cap, etc.
Tuesday I was on the early run on the 4-6-0 with Lee.
My impressions during the second day were preserved in an email to a friend:
"I'm over in Poznan, Poland at an Internet Cafe in the basement of the train station. Yesterday and today I have been on a 4-6-0 on the run from Wolsztyn, 80km away. I go back on the return trip at 13:30.
"Pretty different operation than Sumpter. It is the regular local passenger run. The method is all out acceleration, up to about 60 mph (they don't have speedometers), shut off the steam and coast for a couple of miles, then apply brakes to stop at the station. Then repeat to the next station. The fireman turns everything off during the acceleration, or maybe runs the injector after the initial departure, and shovels like crazy when coasting. We produce huge amounts of smoke.
"I fired this morning and annoyed the crew because I banged the shovel into the edge of the firedoor and dinged the corner of the shovel. I have a hard time hitting the front of the grate with coal. The crew likes to receive beer or vodka for each error, so they yelled "Vodka!" when I banged the shovel. I think I need to pick up a bottle at the end of the day to give to them. Beer is "piwo" but those errors are not as serious. They take the liquor home to consume it- the highway rules say no alcohol in the blood.
"Pretty interesting running so fast. We go by bushes and trees and they suddenly get flung to the side as the engine goes past.
"It's been raining today so things were slippery- they don't use sand and they are not real concerned if it slips some. They also use the engine brake to stop it from slipping. We should try that at Sumpter and carefully watch (the CMO's) reaction!"
Wednesday I was on the 4-6-0 on the early run again, this time with Wayne. We had a good time in Poznan, walking over to the old market square and going to the Armaments Museum. I had gone to it on Sunday, but there was plenty more to see the second time.
Thursday I had the day off.
Friday I was on the run to Leszno, about 50km away, which was only an hour instead of two. I was with Art one direction, and Rob the other. We switched places half way each trip. We were on the 4-6-2 "Beautiful Helen" express loco. Truly beautiful. Throttle (the regulator...) almost impossible to open- the engineer had to help me. Once it was open the steam chest pressure shot up and you had to thrash back and fourth to keep it under 1 MPa to keep it from slipping. Once it got going it sure was a smooth riding engine.
I met the family in Leszno and we went back the other track (electric) toward Poznan, stopping at Stary Bojonowo. That is the junction with the 750mm narrow gauge that the other Americans were running. Sure enough, about 2 hrs later the cutest 0-8-0 with a graffiti-decorated coach arrived. We rode it to Smiegel, ate lunch, came back, caught the next local train to Leszno, and I rode the "Beautiful Helen" back to Wolsztyn.
Saturday all the other Americans were on a "Freight Special" organized by Carl Franz. So I had the 4-6-0 and the Polish crew to myself, to Leszno and return. I fired the way out, engineered on the way back. I thought I did pretty well firing- the fireman didn't "fix" my fire and the pressure and water stayed up, with a medium amount of smoke. At one point they blew down until they could see the water at the top of the glass. At the end of the day the fireman said "you are a very good fireman" and gave me a thumbs-up.
A Few Notes About Polish Cab Equipment:
The throttles (regulators...) on the locos I was on were vertical handles with ratchets. The reversers were screw, with pretty aggressive double threads that made for 60 pcnt to 30 pcnt cutoff in about two complete revolutions. They had a lock at the edge of the reverser wheel. The whistles were fairly shrieky little ones, operated by a lever-handle. They gave one blast for a crossing, but the unprotected crossings with traffic they kept blasting and blasting. (Most crossings were either mud tracks through fields, which they ignored, or gated crossings, which they usually tooted for). No bell. The injectors on the locos I was on were non-lifting and either sized or adjusted to match the steam usage fairly closely- we would open the valve and leave it on most of the time were were coasting and the minute were were sitting at the station. Train brake pretty similar to an H-6 but it went full release, running, double heading notch, lap, apply. The lap notch was lap all the way, so to apply you had to go beyond the notch. I'm not sure if there was an emergency.
The boiler pressure of the 4-6-0 was about 1.2 MPa, while the 4-6-2 was about 1.8 MPa. Both locos had valve chest pressure gauges, which everyone watched a lot. If you kept the valve chest pressure under 1.0 MPa you wouldn't slip much, unless the rail was real wet. You started at 60 percent cutoff, then 50, then 40, then 30 percent. One engineer liked 60, 45, 30. You could see the valve chest pressure drop from .75 to .5 MPa as the speed increased, then when you'd hook up the pressure would go back up to .75 MPa.
A Few Notes About Firing:
Most of the reason I wanted to do the Wolszytn thing was to get experience firing with coal. I've fired steam locomotives with oil and wood, but never coal. I watched at the Durango and Silverton with an expensive cab ride, but never tried it myself. So here are some observations.
First, the coal looked really good. It was almost all egg-to-fist-sized lumps, nice and shiny and rounded at the edges. I asked one of the firemen if it was good coal. "Poland has good coal" he said. Did they ever get bad coal? "At the south of Poland," and he made the shape of Poland in the air with his hands, then pointed to the bottom, "they have bad coal." I never saw them deal with clinkers, and there seemed to be minimal cinders. The coal ignited immediately and made large amounts of black smoke. I could see some pieces swell after they had sat in the fire, but it did not crust over when it coked. I never saw yellowish smoke nor smelled sulfurous smells. They watered it down with either a hose, or, in the case of "Beautiful Helen," with coal sprinkling nozzles built into the tender.
Second, the shovels were very long, almost twice as long as I expected. Some were obviously welded across, so when they wear down they weld on a new section.
I watched the firemen work, before I tried it and of course after, too. They started with the front of the firebox, and they flung the coal straight in, sometimes sliding the handle of the shovel through their left hand glove. As the bottom of the shovel went through the firedoor, they usually touched the bottom of the shovel on the opening while lowering the back of the handle, raising the front of the shovel slightly. The result was that as the coal left the end of the shovel, the second half of it was flung slightly higher. Although they made it look easy, I never got the hang of that trick. They also bumped the bottom of the shovel on the opening to spray coal in the middle of the box, which I had seen before and I pretty well figured out after awhile.
The Polish firemen also put a LOT of coal along the back of the firebox, especially in the corners. They would fill the shovel as full as possible, where coal was spilling off, and carefully put it into the firebox and turn it back to the corner and dump it sideways to make a kind of wall of coal along the back edge of the firebox, with extra in the corner. They would sprinkle a scoop through the firedoor to put a line right under the door.
I started by trying to lay down an even layer of coal in the firebox, starting with one side, then the other. So the first complaint I got was "Right, Left! Right, Left!" Ok, I always imagined left-right, but it made sense to alternate. Also, it was obvious you had to start at the front (front of engine) because the flames obscured the view as soon as there was a new scoop of coal. They told me I needed more in the front, and also the back would get too thin and burn through brightly.
When I was with Lee the fireman tried to tell him where to fling the coal, but he didn't seem to understand, so the fireman put lumps of coal in the shovel to explain. He put two large lumps at the two sides at the front of the shovel, small lumps on each side in the middle, and two large lumps at either side of the back of the shovel. Lee was talking about this and that and looking the other way. I looked at the shovel and realized that was the explanation of how to fire with coal. "Lee, that's the DIAGRAM!" I told him. But I think his attention was elsewhere.
By the last day I had a system that seemed to work. I tried this: front left, front right, front left, front right. Then left side, right side. Then back left corner, back right corner. Left just in front of the corner, right just in front of the corner. One in front center, hit the shovel to spray the front half center, hit the shovel gently for the back half center, then sprinkle coal right below the firedoor.
That's all I know at this point.
July 22, 2007 Revised Jan. 1, 2008
Copyright © 2007 Charles Turner