Harry Bean

SP 2-8-0 #3420
Pontiacguy1 writes:


 * The best working sander I've ever seen was on Harry 'Schorcher' Bean's Southern Pacific 2-8-0. He had a tank made under each running board that looked like an air tank, but which held sand. He had a manual valve that would drop the sand down in front of the wheels. He used a slightly oversize pipe, and he had a handle that came out at the back of the cab that would activate the valve. Gravity feed only. He had to manually activate each side, and his technique was to open and then close one side then the other in quick succession when going up a grade. His locomotive would pull quite large loads for its size, no doubt because of the superior adhesion that it had.

Obiturary
Tom Stamey wrote the following in Trainorders.com:


 * Harry Bean of Oklahoma City, and previously of El Paso Tx passed away Oct 22, 2014 from cancer.


 * Harry was a prolific live steamer who only really got started after retiring from El Paso Natural Gas. He completed his life long ambition to get a locomotive in live steam 7.5 inch gauge. He got a man in Phoenix to build his dream of SP 2-8-0 #3420 to be just like the real engine retired in El Paso and on exhibit there. After some trials and problems he finally got it and rapidly became a traveling ambassador for the live steam community.


 * Harry took his engine to meets in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, 2 provinces in Canada and I am probably leaving out some others. Harry fitted the engine with a speedometer/odometer that kept actual and scale miles and speeds. He kept written records of the engines travels. At the time of his death the engine had traveled OVER an actual 3700 miles, had been rebuilt once and had its second boiler.


 * Harry was a great friend of all who knew him. Even though his health had gotten poor in the last year, he ran a train just over a couple of weeks before his death at the Annetta Valley & Western Railroad near Fort Worth, Texas.


 * Harry: may you have nothing but "hi green" old friend. We shall all miss him greatly.