NYCRRson wrote: How long did that white coat stay white, did you make it through the day without a grease/oil/dirt smudge ?I guess we're pretty far from B&H #4 but you might enjoy this one anyway.
One cold February night in 1980 the Ontario Midland second trick crew was headed east toward Hannibal in a heavy snowstorm. Somewhere between Red Creek and their destination, in the middle of nowhere the engine derailed on an iced-up farm crossing. Although not off too bad, the engine could not back itself on. The crew was finally picked up and driven to Sodus, leaving old #36 idling away to prevent freeze damage.
The next day the track crew chipped the ice and snow away, and a local bulldozer was brought in with a stout cable to help. Around mid-day things were ready. When the signal was given, the bulldozer pulled and the engineer gave the loco a few notches of throttle.
Unfortunately that engine had Mahle pistons, which were fine as long as you worked the engine hard but they did not like to idle (plus the loco was quite a while out of its last rebuild). 36 had been sitting there about 12 hours in cold temps, and when awakened from its snooze it gave a pretty good imitation of the Spindletop oil gusher. The General Manager was standing in just the wrong spot, wearing a coat similar to mine, and before he knew what was happening, he looked like a Dalmatian!
The company wound up buying him a new coat!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion of B&H 4!
a mistake, because the locomotive itself has been saying all along that it is LAL 14, and it has never changed since it arrived in Cohocton.