Vintage work crew photos

[mrz80]

I love those compound locomotives, this one looks to be a Challenger, with twelve drivers, it was smaller than the Union Pacific's Bigboy, but the Challenger had more traction effort than Bigboy's 16 drivers, due to less weight per driver!

The photo is of Norfolk and Western #2180 . It's a Y-6 class 2-8-8-2 articulated. The N&W Ys were among the largest and most powerful steam locomotives ever operated (the UP's 4-8-8-4 Big Boys were larger and faster, but with less tractive effort, and the Virginian's 2-10-10-2s had higher tractive effort but at a much lower speed). They were used for heavy freight and coal trains in the mountains, moving to mine runs as diesels finally started displacing steam in the late 50s. There exists one remaining example of the type, nonoperational, in a museum.

[Frank S]

I use a lot of butter on my waffles or pancakes but just 1 of those blobs of butter would last me a life time. But I could have used it to grease the train rails where I used to live to stop the dang trains

[Denis G]

I love those compound locomotives, this one looks to be a Challenger, with twelve drivers, it was smaller than the Union Pacific's Bigboy, but the Challenger had more traction effort than Bigboy's 16 drivers, due to less weight per driver!

According to this article:
https://www.railarchive.net/bigboys/index.html

Union Pacific Big Boy tractive force = 135,375 lbf
Union Pacific Challenger tractive force = 97,300 lbf

Usually you want more weight on drivers to increase traction (air foils on racing cars improved tractive performance when they were introduced).

[hemmjo]

All of those BIG old machines fascinate me. I was fortunate enough to visit the Forney Musuem of Transportation in Denver, Colorado last summer.
( https://www.forneymuseum.org/ )

Sitting outside the humble building, waiting for it to open, I was thinking, "this is going to be a wasted day." I was sure surprised when I got inside. The contents of the building is amazing, I did not want to leave, but others were hungry, and we had a schedule to keep.

It is humbling to stand beside the "BigBoy" locomotive and try to imagine the iron men that designed and built the behemoth of a machine.

[bruce.desertrat]

Thanks for that mention; the Forney museum sounds fascinating; my brother-in law and his wife live near-ish there, be fun to take it in next time we go visit them.

[IntheGroove]

I am a sucker for bridge cranes...

[Jon]

Dairy factory workers posing beside butter churns. New Zealand.

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...y_fullsize.jpg

[bruce.desertrat]

Preparing the supply for an episode of Paula Deen's cooking show....

[hemmjo]

Or Perhaps preparing the butter for the sculptures at The Ohio State Fair. Looks like that might be just about enough to do the job. I guess shipping might be a problem from New Zealand to Ohio, USA.

A snip from this site https://ohiostatefair.com/butter-cow/
"In the early 1900s, The Ohio State University and the Dairy Processors of Ohio sponsored butter sculpting contests at the Ohio State Fair. The subjects of these contests were not restricted to specific things. In 1903, the first butter cow and calf were featured at the Fair, sculpted by A. T. Shelton & Company, distributors of Sunbury Co-Operative Creamery butter."


A snip from this site https://ohiostatefair.com/butter-cow/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

[IntheGroove]

The bullwheel is as big as the churn barrels...