Putting #2 away - Part 1. The process of putting one of the Cog Railway's steam engines away in the shop building is one that most rail enthusiasts never see. For one thing, it's just not a common operation anymore. Here, we see MWRC #2 "Ammonoosuc" has arrived at the shop complex. The first priority is separating the tender as it is empty and the locomotive no longer has a fire. This involves disconnecting a pair or safety chains, removing both water legs, and then disconnecting the draw bar. All of that takes a few minutes. Then, as you can see, the crew manually roll the tender away from the locomotive and onto the Transfer Table, which will carry it to a nearby stub track. The tender will stay outside most of the time. Once that operation is complete, the locomotive will be backed onto the Transfer Table and carried to its stall, where it will back in on remaining boiler pressure. All of that is normally pretty easy, but today, the crew has a problem. One of the rear cylinders is missing a connecting rod and cannot be powered. Instead, the crew will need to use the two forward cylinders to power the engine in reverse, but to make that work, they will need to adjust the valve timing on the cylinders a full 180 degrees. Once that is done, the Forward Steam Valve will cause the engine to do the opposite of what it normally does, and will allow it to back up. All of this was brand new to me. To the "coggers" here, it was all in a day's work.
