It's great reading all of these...am particularly jealous of Tony J. getting to ride in an
SP 4300, maybe the classiest SP steam ever. Martin B, you certainly have had some fine adventures also.
Guatemala was an especially friendly place for Yanks to visit while they still had steam in
service. I went there 6 times in the 70's.
On my first trip in late '71, I had been under the weather for a couple of days and decided to get out of the hotel and see some steam again. I had told a friend that I'd try to get some b&w photos for him of the ex-Sumpter Valley articulateds so I drove my rented VW to Escuintla, some 47 miles by rail from Guatemala City.
I took one of my Pentax's from the car and walked over to the roundhouse & came upon a foreman who had let me move an engine a few days prior. He gestured to me to follow him and we boarded 154, one of 3 Porter-built Mikes that was on the roster, He explained as best he could that he was given late orders to have a helper ready for the San Jose Turn when it came into town. There was 16 miles of 3.7% from Escuintla to Palin. He didn't think that the train needed one, but he lit a fire anyway and then walked out to the turntable. The engine had maybe 150 lbs. from being left hot, so I started the compressor. When the governor shut and stopped the compressor, I gave him a wave and he had me back the Mike out on the table. He gave it a spin so we were facing North and then lined us so that we could take oil. I kept waiting for a crew to show up.
Pretty soon, the passenger arrived and stopped at the station. We backed out on the main behind it and then came ahead to a joint with the rear car. Still no crew. At length, he went into the train order office and came back with a set of orders which I little understood but had my name mis-spelled on them. Some kid got the firemans seat and another gave me a wave as he sat up on the pilot deck. I was told to shove to Palin where we'd cut off without taking water and then return light engine back to Escuintla.
This engine was dead dog tired and badly needed shopping. There was a lot of lost motion in the throttle linkage. My injector would not pick up but the fireman's did. We got a highball and off we went. The grade started about a quarter mile out of town and pretty soon we were on the worst of it. I had laid my camera on the floor directly in front of me and never did use it, I still felt stiff & sore from whatever got to me a few days earlier. We plodded up the hill only slipping once or twice. When we crossed over the high viaduct above the highway, I knew we were near Palin. A couple more curves and the brakie reached down and pulled the cut lever and I slowed and watched the train pull away from us. Got a backup from him and then started down the hill. Not being used to it at all, I was glad when the fireman gave me some help and we also stopped once to cool the drivers. I sweated this part a lot more than the shove, but we got back to Escuintla.
We had a misadventure at the top end of the yard and went on the ground. I never wanted out of someplace so bad and seriously had visions of being arrested, but the foreman came up, patted me on the shoulder and told me to stay with it. They had a yard goat, a 2-8-0, run around us and couple on the the front and it helped get us on rail. The cab apron between the engine and tender was bent and one of the hard rubber injector suction lines from the tender popped loose, but I was told not to sweat it. They must have been right as I was still welcome on subsequent visits.
Those orders never did make it home...I think I left them in my hotel room along with some postcards.