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The Porter: 'Hoss' This is the locomotive that started it all. The day after our son moved to Georgia with the Army, we bought this 1908 Porter. What would you do with all of your spare time? Haha... The intent was to restore the locomotive cosmetically for display only. If it was easy to get it running, we could possibly build 100' of track to run it back and forth. But Marie, seeing far into the future as only mothers can, envisioned something a little larger for future 'grand-kiddies'. (Webmaster's note: yes, Mom, I get the hint!) It was quickly given the nickname, 'Hoss', which coincidentally is the 'spelling' on a phone keypad when you type in the builder's number: 4077. Here is the locomotive being delivered by a good friend of ours. This photo gives you a good idea of the hilly, tree-covered terrain that Charlie would eventually have to transform into a working railroad!
And here is a shot of the locomotive being lowered into position using the log-loader on a self-loading log-truck. The engine weight is 10 tons. Given the 60-pound rail Charlie used to build the railroad, this is a light-weight!
And here it is, all settled in.
Every locomotive needs a bath, now and then! The next two photos show it being steam-cleaned and what it looks like after being sand- blasted.
Once the metal was exposed from the steam-cleaning and sand-blasting, the locomotive would have quickly rusted. So Charlie applied a primer coat to all exposed metal. You can see it starting to take on a very pleasing 'steam locomotive' appearance. On that note, you should know that the compressed-air locomotive was a very conscious decision. Given the high insurance rates and the fact that we run this as a small hobby, a compressed-air engine is much more economical to run for our friends and family. No fuel, no water, and best of all, no astronomically high insurance! The only cost to run is a bit of lubricants and the electricity to compress the air.
Here is one of the newest photos of the Porter. She's rolling for the first time in who-knows-how long. When we bought the Porter, everything was frozen solid. In fact, to get rid of all the pitting inside the cylinders, Charlie had to bore each cylinder 1/4-inch oversize. The large amount of rust was caused by someone removing the original oilers on top of the cylinders, allowing rain water to enter. But, she's on track (no pun intended) to being as good as new. Our goal is to have her up and running by her 100th birthday: 2008!
That's it for now. If you want to see some examples of other Porter compressed air locomotives, please go to our other Porter page. We're trying to catalog every other Porter we can find. Most we find are 2-foot gauge, or smaller. It seems that the 3-footers are a bit rare.
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