Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Despite the heat work progressed well in the steam shop this week. 

A number of important tasks on 1630 were moved forward:

·         During the week, Kevin has made good progress on needle chipping the mountings under the boiler in preparation for painting.

·         Jason worked with Bob Hunter on the form 4 submission which is now well under way.

·         Glenn and Richard (welcome Richard on his first day) reassembled the McCabe which we urgently need to produce the firebox patch.  An extremely awkward set screw fitting was achieved and the piston refitted.  Now we are close to being able to test the machine.

Piston back in place

·         Phil and Bob continued tapering the super heater flues.  A welding contractor is due in next Saturday and we should then be able to start building up the flues ready for refitting.

Flues ready for welding

·         Dennis welded the marks on the front tube sheet that need to be filled ready for tube fitting and also repaired the crack in the smoke box.  We can now finish the front tube sheet ready for the inspection.  That was the good news !!.  The bad news was that Dennis proved that he is too big to reach the rear tube sheet either from the firebox or from inside the boiler.  (Despite all the jokes, it is not your gut but your rib cage that determines this.  I can just barely fit between the arch tubes and usually bruise my ribs when I do so,  Dennis is just that little bit bigger in the chest).  Hopefully the contractor coming in next Saturday is smaller and can do the work on the rear tube sheet.

Dennis welding the tube sheet

·         Collin, Sean and Jason removed flexible stay caps that we need to inspect and Jason refitted a number that we have already done.

Removing a stay cap

Here you can see the inside of a flexible stay after cleaning and inspection.  The slot is in the ball head of the stay surrounded by the hex headed sleeve.  The stay is a long threaded rod with the ball head at one end,  When fitting a new stay it is inserted from the outside thru the sleeve and screwed into the inner firebox.  So far we have not found any bad ones, which is good news as replacing these is a slow job.

Inside a stay

·         The big new task started, which kept a lot of us busy, was the cleaning and testing of the super heater elements.  There are 16 of these and each must be wire brushed clean, the ball ends that fit into the header thoroughly cleaned and polished and then hydro tested to 1000 psi.  While it will be months before we are ready to fit these, we wanted to start early so that we can schedule any repairs if required.  It was a good thing we did.  The first one failed the pressure test and will need to be rebuilt.  Two then passed and the fourth proved to have a good deal of corrosion on one of  the ball ends which will require significant work to reshape or replace.

Paul cleaning super heater elements

This shows the critical ball end of an element.  The two rounded ends fit into rounded recesses in the header.  It is essential that these provide a smooth, polished and rounded surface that mates tightly to the header.

The ball ends of an element

·         We also welcomed a number of groups of visitors to the shop.  It was encouraging that a couple of groups expressed surprise at the number of volunteers and amount of work being progressed.

In other areas:

·         Jeff put together an outline plan for positioning machines in the new machine shop.  Once this is agreed we will be able to position all the large equipment and free up a good deal of space in other parts of the shop.

·         Bob cut the steel slugs that Tom will now machine to make the spring retainers for the Shay and also continued work on the planer.

Nigel