Steam Department

There were two very separate activities at the steam shop this weekend.

Outside, the Kansas City Southern tender from Galt arrived and had to be unloaded and put back on its trucks (which had arrived separately during the week).  Here the rather unusual trucks of this tender await the arrival of the tender itself.

Trucks of the KCS tender arrived first

The tender is a fairly substantial items as can be seen from comparison to the B&G building as it enters IRM for the first time.

The tender itself enters IRM

A good deal of careful back and fore was required to position the tender (still on the trailer) centrally over the track so that the mounting points would be in the correct position to fit into the trucks.

Tricky placement to center on the track

Once in place steel beams were located under the body.  The trailer had then to be raised, blocks placed under the beams, and then lowered a number of times until there was sufficient height to set jacks under the beams.

Raising and lowering to place jacks

Finally the jacks were all placed and the tender could be raised off the trailer.

Jacks in place

The trailer is free and starts to move out from under the tender.

The trailer is free and starts to move out

The trucks are chained to the trailer and each other so that they are pulled under the tender, at the correct spacing, as the trailer pulls out.

Pulling the trucks back under the tender

The job of lowering the tender back onto its trucks so that the pins aligned and the pivot points located into the sockets in the trucks proved to be a long and tricky exercise.  It was well past dark by the time this was completed so pictures of the completed tender are for next week !.

On 1630, things looked bleak in the morning.  We are absolutely dependent for tube loading on those of the team who can fit into the boiler.  Having arranged a morning and afternoon shift, as it is more than one person can do to work in these conditions all day, Collin's car failed and he was not able to get to Union in the morning.  However, while we lost the morning shift, Jason did sterling work in the afternoon.  Here we see him "relaxing" between loading tubes.  It is not a environment in which you can work for more than a few hours at a time.

Jason increasingly restricted by tubes

We have now completed loading of the tubes down both sides of the super heaters.  The fireman's side, looking forward, now looks pretty full compared to earlier views when we were sand blasting.

Firemans side now loaded

Looking toward the firebox on the engineer's side also shows the boiler filling rapidly.  This also shows the positioning of the copper ferrules, which are set slightly below the surface of the tube sheet in the firebox, where the end of the tube will be beaded, but projecting into the boiler barrel, where the copper can be seen around each of the new tubes.

Engineers side showing ferrules in place

Progress in fitting fire tubes

Mike continued work on drilling the rivet holes in the patch.  The accurate alignment of these holes is proving to be a significant challenge.

Nigel