The 1971 trip to Guatemala was by far the best in terms of variety and the amount of steam in service, this while second generation diesels had just arrived on the property too.
Zacapa had a switch engine working all 3 shifts. The night before I took the photo from the veranda, I walked out in the yard in the dark and climbed on 2-8-0 102. There was no fireman, so I just waved at the engineer and worked at it for about an hour before I finally went up to the room that I was sharing with Harold Edmonson.
The Consolidation was essentially a deckless engine, you had to step back and look across the backhead to converse with the engineer, but it was pretty easy and a lot of fun. They over atomized the crap out of their boilers and it worked. The firebox would be drumming so hard it'd almost give you a headache, but they'd generate steam. You stood up, I don't remember a seat at all.
There was a grade leaving town when you were headed back to Guatemala City and 102 was a rear end helper, shoving backwards on the local on the morning that I took the veranda photo. Harold & I watched them cut off on the fly from the rented VW we were driving in.
There were a few dead engines around that had not been used for awhile...one was 2-8-2 185. Gary Allen got me a builders plate off of her a few months later when he visited. It cost me five bucks, 2 for the plate and 3 for the overweight fee on PanAm! Jack Neville ended up with the other plate years later, how's that for coincidence?
That work extra that I mentioned eaarlier with the 202 had a steam powered shovel in the consist and it was hot. In retrospect, I should have shot this more than the 1 slide that I took, but I was one sick kid that morning and the effects lasted just about all day. If it hadn't have been for Harold doing the driving, I'd probably still be down there.