Two nice pictures of "Brutis" aka(UP8444) and "Baltor" aka (UP3985). The names conjer up another story.
Yes the two diesel units did ALL the work. The only time on the entire trip of these steam engines from Ogden to Sacramento and back to Ogden that they were ever in any configuration but drifting throttle was between Andover and Shed 47. This was entirely by design. That was the reason for the almost new SD-40's. We selected two units even though one was enough. We didn't want a stalled steam train if we had unit trouble. We left nothing to chance.
We were informed by the UP steam engine experts that the engines had to be under steam while in motion as they required a throttle setting of "Lubricating Steam" to lubricate the pistons and cylinders otherwise the drive rods would have to be disconnected. This left us only two options. Drifting steam or working steam. Working steam was discounted as we didn't have enough water facilities across Utah and Nevada to supply this enormous quantity of water. Remember were went out of the steam business in the middle 50's. Drifting throttle was critical enough on the water supply and the way we pulled it off was to contact the City officials in the Nevads towns that we went through that had a fire dept and have them pump water out of the hydrants into the tenders during our scheduled 30 minute photo stops. This gave us a minimum amount of water to move these monsters across the state.
Before we left Spsrks that morning we had a meeting with all concerned on what role they would play. The decision was made to do the wide throttle setting on the steamers between Cold Stream Curve and Shed 47. MLB had arranged with the (train nuts) Rail Fans thats where we would have the steam working as hard as we could. The RFE and the diesel hoghead made the program that the steam power would widen out after leaving Cold Stream Curve and as the speed picked up the Diesel hog head would crank in dynamic brake to keep the velocity constant. This worked out very well as we got two barking Steam Engines and some very good pictures. Myself and MLB were in the hy-rail just ahead of the train going west on the eastbound track and got some classic photos between T-13 nd Shed 47. A very interesting time. I still don't like steam engines.