Those Crazy South Africans: Storytime Sunday - Steam Trains (Reefsteamers Open Day)

Hello and welcome to Storytime Sunday; the day of the week where I tell you about the story about the random subject from yesterday so that the random subject accurately talks about a story being posted the next day. I also talk about steam trains.

An actual South African train this time. Also, photography is hard...

Yesterday I saw actual Steam Locomotive's for the first time in my life. And they were working too. Perhaps that doesn't sound very exciting, but for people who enjoy learning about the way technology has evolved over the years, and the history behind things, (Like myself), it was a fantastic experience. If you're one of those people, you may enjoy this post.

So, prior to yesterday, I had never actually seen a Steam Locomotive in real life. Of course, having been born in 1995, I was brought into the world far past the age of steam, and the use of diesel and electric locomotives was by far the norm. I won't say I was immediately interested in the idea of going to these trains, having never really known enough about them to spark an interest, I am quite glad that my old man took me along to the Reefsteamers Winter Depot Open Day yesterday. (Not that it was entirely just to look, we were there as members of the N Gauge Guild, but the opportunity to check out the trains was one not to be passed up. Besides, I did say I was going and would talk about it today in yesterday's post.)

I'm a terrible photographer occasionally. Don't expect too much from these images.

So what exactly did I enjoy about the event? Well, for starters, I always say I'll try anything twice. I didn't imagine that would involve climbing onto various steam trains, one of which had a fire burning a mere few feet from me, within it's giant steel belly.

"Not even hot" the driver said. "If it were hot it would be white." he said. It was roughly at this moment I realized just how much engineering went into these steal beasts.

Perhaps another interesting part was the history behind the machines and the men who worked on and with them. Many of the train drivers, (and enthusiasts), present at the event spoke about the trains as if they were people, often saying things like the trains were "alive". Which makes sense considering the degree to which they had to get to know each individual locomotive in order to drive it. Each loco had different behaviors, and would not act the same way to the same things like boiler heat or the amount of oil used on it's parts, likely due to the lack of standardized parts from which they were built. Considering the expense of building one of these, only those who knew the train as well as they would know a sibling were aloud to drive it. (The drivers would often be chosen from the most veteran "firemen". Those are the poor fellows that shovel coal into the train's fire for years on end.)

Worth noting: This was taken at head height.

However, the greatest part of this entire foray, was the further growth of my appreciation for the sheer ingenuity of people in years gone by. No computers or magical implements to do stuff, these trains were basically held together by hard work and prayers that whoever drew the design, (by hand), didn't screw up. There are no counters screens up in the engine cabin, just a large variety of valves, and a couple gauges, with which the driver would have to try and drive the train optimally and without wrecking it. (Which is significantly easier than you would expect, considering the heat within these engines often got hot enough to split the atoms in water into hydrogen and oxygen and further burn them. Yes. They sprayed water into their fires to make them hotter, because logic is for losers apparently.)

If you were looking for an indication of age, the words British and Detroit on one of the control mechanisms within the loco are good indication of it's near 100 years of service.

If there's one thing to take away from something like this, it's that people in the old days got things done, hell or high-water as the proverb goes. One of the most phenomenal things to consider is that they would sometimes run 2 of these unholy metal behemoths in tandem. (That means to put the together to pull more weight.) That doesn't sound so hard these days, but remember I mentioned they didn't have any special monitors for their trains? Lets add the fact that radio's didn't exist when they did this, and the trains are long enough that there is no possible way to communicate from one engine to another. I'm not saying these guys were superhuman, but there must have been some telepathic stuff going on for these guys to get these trains moving in perfect time. Remember, the trains don't behave the same, so the drivers would have to somehow, in perfect unison, get their locomotive to start moving and pulling at the exact same speed and exert the exact same amount of torque. (My mind has yet to find a rational explanation for how this was possible. If you know, be sure to let me in on the secret in the comments below.)

It's 2014 and the height of the digital era, it would have been near sacrilege to not take an obligatory selfie while standing next to various metal components.*Goes to hang himself for saying that.*

In any case, it was a fantastic experience to get to see these majestic, metal monsters in action in an era where they are near completely outmoded by more efficient technologies. I certainly would enjoy seeing more interesting events like these and learning more about the crazy things that they did in the bygone eras to get by.

In any case, I have a variety of other pictures that I took, some of which I'll leave below for laughs since I couldn't think of any reasonable way to work them into this post. If you found this interesting and would like to see me talk more about stuff like this, or anything in general, make sure to let me know in the comments below. Also, if you know any train/history/general knowledge enthusiast friends, make sure to share this with them. They may appreciate your consideration. Also, if you would like to read more articles likes these or articles by me, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the right so that you can get the latest posts, as they're posted. Finally, regardless of what you do, I thank you for taking the time to read this, hope you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Totsiens mense.

She approaches...

You would think it obvious, but I'm wondering why there was no warning not to touch the obviously hot metal when there was a sign warning about moving trains. Also, who made such a sign necessary?