Woodland Park 2

I left off last time with me starting the train out of the station. I'll continue from that point.

The 'new' amusement park entrance just South of the station was formed by creating a walking underpass from the main zoo walkway level, under the train track elevation and back to the (lower) grade of the amusement park area. That required a wooden bridge to support the tracks over that entrance. I always liked that deep rumble of the train as it moved over the bridge.

After the bridge, the track went downhill and around a shallow curve to circle the amusement park area. I always worried about this stretch of track, as visibility was limited and when (not if) kids would jump around in front of me, I didn't have a lot of options to stop the train quickly. Knowing this, I always considered this the primary place where the darling little kids would try to derail me by placing branches or other debris on the track. I likely would have had trouble stopping with a full load of passengers, and the workable but not overwhelming stopping power of my vacuum brakes. But, fortune favored the foolish, and the park kids never caught on to my vulnerability on this initial stretch of the run.

Near the bottom of this curve, was the one turnout (switch) on the track. This trailing point turnout connected a spur of track that led to a two 'car' garage that was intended to be used to store the train. Another switch divided the spur into the two tracks leading into the garage. With one exception, we never used that method as it proved much easier to construct a train length wooden tunnel that was also used for the overnight storage of the train.

The only time that we used the garage, was when we were having some sort of engine trouble for a time and while one engine was waiting on a part, one of the passenger cars was stored in the garage to reduce the weight the train needed to pull. On fair days (Yeah, Seattle has some of those), the park would be full, and likewise the train would run with full seats most of the day. It was somewhat daunting to calculate the weight of train and especially people that I would have behind me.

Rounding the bend then at the bottom of the hill, we travel through the tunnel on a slight uphill grade. I'd need to add medium throttle here so the noise through the tunnel was significant. Of course the kids would yell at the top of their lungs as we travel through the darkness, and the yells would bouce off of the enclosed space. Exiting the tunnel, the track took a couple of reasonably sharp curves, with the second curve always a bit bumpy due, I figured, to an imprecise track alignment, and a bit too sharp of a turn. This stretch was also slightly uphill, but I preferred to use a light power setting so as not to go too fast through the bumpy turns.

Past the S-turns, we again went slightly downhill to cross another (older) bridge that spanned a depressed main walkway through the park that led down to one of the three Hwy 99 overpasses that connected the main zoo property with the more open part of the park, referred to as Lower Woodland. We occasionally used that bridge for service work on the engines. We had a gap between the tracks that we could use for oil changes, or other work that required access to the underside of the train.

Passing over the bridge, we were now going uphill on the steepest grade of the run. Besides going uphill, it was going around a sweeping curve. With anything close to a full load of people, I needed pretty much full throttle with the Wisconsin's right up against the RPM governors.

That curve reminds me of several stories. One such memory requires a bit of explanation. The G-16 units had throttle controls using the vacuum 'power' that was produced from the low pressure created by the throttle body of the carburetors. That vacuum negative pressure was stored in large tanks in the front of the engine bodies. Check valves protected the vacuum tank pressure when the carburetors were not producing vacuum, such as when they were running with open throttles. Ok so far?

During a time, something went wrong with the check valve and the vacuum wasn't protected from bleeding off during high throttle operations. What this resulted in was me opening up the (vacuum powered) throttle and powering up the hill. When the vacuum disappeared, the throttles promptly closed as the tension springs on the throttle linkages for both engines pulled opposite the vacuum piston. This was all well and good, except that I needed power to get up the hill!

This caused the no doubt entertaining spectacle of me getting as much speed and momentum as possible and then waiting for the throttles to back off despite the control lever position. When this occurred, I'd judge when I could jump out, sprint up to the forward engine vent opening, hop on the hood, reach down and push the throttle linkage by hand in one engine. This single engine ascent wouldn't have been enough with full loads, but lucky for me, this occurred during a slower time in the park. As soon as we got to the top, I'd have to jump back in my cab, and now that the vacuum was restored (as the throttles closed) I was back to normal operation! This went one for several trips and then, without any warning cleared itself and all was well.

Before trying the above maneuver, I tried to back off of the throttle, allowing vacuum to be created from the now powered down throttles, and then use that to regain power to get up the hill. I wasn't able to get this to work, as there was a delay between the time the carburetors throttle valve closed, to draw down the pressure in the storage tanks before I had working pressure to regain throttle control. Those vacumn tanks could be my friend or work against me. By the time I got back throttle pressure, I had slowed to the point where I could not top the grade.

(More Later)
Dad