(train whistle)
- Hi, my name is Jacob Malbouef.
I'm one of our mechanics
here in the Roundhouse
at Greenfield Village.
We are currently in the cab
of a Detroit and Lima
Northern Locomotive Number 7.
It's a 1897 Baldwin-built locomotive,
and we're gonna show you a little bit
about what it takes to operate it.
So let's take it away.
(steam hissing)
(train bell)
The Number 7 is a steam locomotive,
which means we burn about
a half a ton of coal a day
here at Greenfield Village
to boil several thousand
gallons of water everyday.
We use the steam that's
created as a result
to make the locomotive move forward.
So there's two crew
members up here in the cab.
There's myself, I'm the
fireman today, so I'm in charge
of making sure we maintain
our boiler pressure.
Keep the water level in
the boiler at a safe level,
and just make sure the
engineer doesn't have to worry
about running out of steam
for pulling the train.
The engineer, Matt, today,
is over on that side of the cab.
He's in charge of operating the locomotive
and the train cars behind it.
So he has control of the
throttle, the brakes,
which direction we go in.
Up in the cab there's all
kinds of knobs and levers
that do all kinds of different things
for the operation of the locomotive.
Right here is one of our two injectors.
These are used to put water in the boiler.
We store water in a car
behind the locomotive
called the tender, and that
contains our spare water supply
as well as our coal.
Right here is our sight glass
which is how we tell how
much water is in the boiler
at any given time.
(train whistle)
Of course, we ring the
bell and blow the whistles
at all our railroad crossings.
(train whistle)
So then looking over to
this side of the cab,
we have our throttle
which is basically the
gas pedal in your car.
We have the Donson bar.
That's kind of like a gear shift level
even though steam locomotives
don't actually have gears,
but that's what makes it
go forward or reverse.
He's got two different brake controls.
One of them is the automatic brake valve
which controls the brakes on
the cars behind the locomotive,
and then the independent brake valve
which controls the brakes
on just the locomotive.
The engineer's job is to
maintain the locomotive
throughout the day when the
mechanics aren't around.
So he has periodic lubrication
duties he has to conduct.
And of course as a part of my
job, I have to shovel coal.
So to add coal, I'm keeping
an eye on our pressure gauge,
and occasionally it'll drop a little bit,
but my job is to try to make sure
it doesn't drop more than a couple pounds.
Our boiler pressure's measured in PSI,
or pounds per square inch,
so if it starts to dip a little bit,
it's probably time to add some coal.
The main indicator though,
is actually watching the
smoke from the smokestack.
So if there's a little haze
coming out of the smokestack,
that means I've got a
pretty good fire going
as long as my pressure is
maintained at a constant level.
If the smoke starts to get clear,
that probably means that it's time
to add a little bit more coal,
because smoke indicates combustion.
(train whistle)
But our main goal here
is to operate the train in a safe way.
The other goal, obviously,
since we're hauling tourists and people,
is that we wanna give them
the smoothest ride possible,
so that's why the
engineer is so important,
is by controlling the train
he can control whether
it's gonna be a smooth ride
or a bumpy ride.
