Well Sourdough........I'm "glad you brought that up. It came up before in the other thread, but was explained in a different way by our own renowned Art Thieme which led to the following:

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 05:47 PM

Mr. Earl-----Many trains carried live canaries whenever they could. If a train had a difficult time getting up a grade the brakeman'd bang on the side of the car the birds were housed within with a 2 by 4. The birds would intantly take to the air and lighten the train enough for the spinning driving-wheels to take the whole thing over the hump!Honest.

Art

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: Bill D
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 05:56 PM

but the cost of canaries was so great back then, that they achieved the same effect by feeding the brakeman/conductor on beans and cabbage and having him stand on the rear caboose platform!! The trick was in the timing...(It is a little known fact that listening to an old brakeman tell about this is how the idea for JATO (jet assisted take-off) for the Air Force came about!)

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: catspaw49
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 06:29 PM

...or sometimes on tough grade,like Horseshoe Curve in Pa., if a helper engine was not available, they'd boost steam pressure by getting two guys like Bill & Art to exhale into the valve gear.

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 07:45 PM

Of course, all these tecniques became obsolete when someone (Jay Gould's daughter?) realized that if you put larger wheels on the caboose, the train would always be goung downhill, and no coal at all was required.

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: Benson
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 08:26 PM

Since the topic of canaries and gasses has arisen in this thread.... it came to mind.......I have been told that they used canaries in the coal mines to detect when the explosive gasses down deep in the mine had reached a level of danger.......the canary would die.....and the miner would get the hell out!!!

Do you suppose those canaries were freed from forced labor...??? Or was there just a run on canaries in 1903?

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Subject: RE: Wreck of the Old 97
From: catspaw49
Date: 28-Dec-98 - 10:50 PM

I suppose you could say the canaries were freed, but this particular group was traced in the Appalachian mountains for years following the wreck. Eventually forming into 7 groups, most had a hard time surviving in the wild. One surviving group was traced to a nesting site across the Cumberland Gap where they had migrated. Most of the local folk enjoyed having these unique birds in their hills. The main nesting area was on the Clinch River northwest of Knoxville. However, the mercury contaminating the river along with the proximity to Oak Ridge, where the birds were often seen feeding, caused mutations and eventually death to the almost the entire flock. The only known descendant of these birds can be seen today on Sesame Street at PBS.

Spaw ******************************************************************

As you can see, at Mudcat, some things never change.

Spaw