Illinois Railway Museum Blog

It was a low turnout at the Steam Department today, in part because several of the team were at Harper staffing the stand at the High Wheeler show.  The weather may have deterred some and it certainly was not kind to the shop!.  The ice brought down a large section of guttering and the machine shop furnace failed, which lead to some time spent investigating the gas leak.

Glenn and Mike made great progress on the super heater flues.  7 of 16 are now cut and ready for safe ending.

7 ready for safe ending

And 9 still to be done

Sand blasting was on hold as Collin was away. Jason tried but found it difficult to work in the boiler due to the accumulation of blasting sand.  This made for an unstable base on which to stand in the confined space of the barrel. 

We therefore brought forward the task of clearing sand from the boiler.  The technique may not look pretty but it works.  The material is so dense that suction is not effective.  It is not easy to sweep or push in the confined space of the boiler but pushing it to the main drain plug and setting up a chute there proved to be the most effective method.

Crude but it works!

In this way we have now removed several hundred pounds of the material from the boiler.

200 pounds removed and about 600 to go!

Several key additional pieces of equipment arrived that should allow us to move forward next week.  We now have the angled tips for the sand blaster that will allow the corners of the firebox to be cleaned.  A dust collector was installed that improves the extraction of dust from the boiler during sand blasting.

With the arrival of a new and more powerful vacuum, substantial progress was made in removing residual lagging material.  This tends to accumulate everywhere as the material fragments as it is removed.  Cleaning this up to enable inspection and refitting is one of many mundane but essential steps in the overhaul.

Mike was working on the mud ring where the patch is to be installed.  This is being ground out in preparation for welding to make good small areas of damage that have been detected.  Once this is done the surface will be prepared for fitting the new material of the patch.

Grinding out the mud ring for weld repair

Nigel