Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Welcome back to the IRM Steam Department skating rink. A few days of thaw during the week were a mixed blessing.  The snow mountains are a little reduced but not much of the water went away.  So it has now formed thick ice.  Blacktop roads around the site could be ploughed effectively and so dried out.  But the unmade roads around the shop now have an inch or more of solid ice.  Pauline’s passenger car shop blog has some great pictures of the conditions around the site.

There was a good turnout and most people sensibly kept to the shop once they had carefully slithered their way in.  Quite a lot of cleaning and painting had been done during the week and it was generally decided that we would have a “dust free” day so a lot of people concentrated on applying primer or topcoat to the lower regions of 1630.  Since we have no separate painting area or dust extraction we have to focus on cleaning and then paint all areas we have cleaned before making any dust anywhere in the shop.

With so many people involved it was difficult to keep track of the progress.  Indeed this is an interim update as I left early to go to the Soiree and I will wait to see what happened after I left.

The major focus was on the frames, both inside and out.  The confined space just behind the cylinders is probably the worst part.

Not an easy area to paint

Brian put in a lot of time in this area.  The trick, that he achieved pretty effectively, is to clamber into the space from the rear, carefully paint all around yourself and leave an exit so that you can clamber out without damaging your work.

Brian painting in a tricky place

Further back, just ahead of the firebox, there is rather more space.  Jerry is hard at work on the inside of the frames on the fireman’s side.  This gives a good indication of how fast things are moving.  The inside of the springs on the engineer’s side are now primed while the outside of the springs on the fireman’s side are already in topcoat.

Jerry at work just ahead of the firebox

Brian, Phil and I refitted the ends of the valve chambers that had been removed for measurement of valve rings for potential replacement in 2015.

Brian refitting the valve chamber ends

Later in the day, the ends and cover sheets were all fully fitted and the painters had already come by and primed the areas around them.

All back in place and primed

Jim was back at work on Sunday and sent me this picture.  The cylinder ends and all the section behind the pilot is now finished.

All back in place and primed

Jim was in early Saturday working on the engineer’s side.  Later in the day, the engineer’s side wheels, frames and motion are well in the way to completion

Engineer’s side largely complete

The fireman’s side is progressing well with much in topcoat and priming well under way.  The lubricator now looks really nice.  That was a lot of work.  A significant exercise now is quality control, i.e. looking at it from all angles and spotting any gaps.  There are so many projections, crevices and angles that this is no small exercise.

Fireman’s side well underway

Dennis worked with Jane on welding, particularly areas of the coal bunker that showed small leaks.

Jane degreased and pressure washed underneath the boiler of the Shay.

Stu, Bob and Mike worked with Rod on the planer.  When I left the hydraulics would move the table in one direction but were showing remarkable reluctance to push it back the other way.  Much analysis was continuing of old manuals and drawings to investigate possible reasons for this.

So a very productive day.

Nigel

Back again after a week’s gap.  Last weekend was the worst yet.  Saturday working was cancelled on February 1^st as the forecast suggested so much snow.  In retrospect that may have been overkill as we did work yesterday when more snow fell than actually arrived the previous week ….. the forecast just did not seem as bad!!.

I have been out at the museum more this week as I take on the role of museum Treasurer.  The museum site is an incredible Winter wonderland.  Dave and the B&G team have done a great job keeping the roads open.  He was saying yesterday that the plough truck has run about 220 miles so far this season simply clearing on site.  However each working day we have to dig our way into the shop, clear drifts to get to equipment like the compressor and any idea of moving equipment or getting at boxcars or containers is a joke.  There are considerable drifts or barriers of ploughed snow everywhere you look.

Anyway, Phil and Tom braved the elements last Sunday and did some work on 428.

This Saturday I was heavily involved in the Board meeting and some follow on Treasurer activities so was not very productive in the shop.  However, there was a good turn out and substantial progress.

On 1630:

The major step forward was reaching general agreement of the plan for painting.  This does not sounds much but is actually rather complicated.  We have two (or effectively three) methods of painting different areas.  Large parts of the loco will be sprayed.  However, there are substantial areas that are so confined and irregular in shape that it seems impossible that a decent finish could be achieved with a  sprayer.  So brush painting seems logical for these.  (The third category is areas in so deep and covered in grease that the logical approach seems to be leave well alone, for example the leading truck frame).  The whole process is complicated by the fact that, while everything is painted black, it is expected that the two painting methods, using different materials, will show shade differences.  So we do not want the two methods used directly next to one another. 

The final plan is that the wheels and frames will be brush painted while the upper works (cab, boiler, tender) will be sprayed.  The wheels were a particularly tough choice.  There is no doubt that 4 and 5 could be sprayed.  Also 3 could be sprayed, but would require several moves of the loco to get at all the spokes.  However, 1 and 2, heavily concealed behind connecting rods, cross heads and slide bars would be a near impossible target for spraying.  (The picture below of #1 is taken looking vertically down behind the slide bars so imagine getting at this with a substantial sprayer!).  So all will be brush painted as the likelihood is that a shade difference would be very obvious if we sprayed just the ones we could. 

With this done progress started to become visible.

Jim had brought in a much more powerful pressure washer.  He and Jerry did a further degreasing run on the frames, wheels, and everything that  was not in the leave well alone category.

Inside the frames now grease free

#1 driver grease free but behind the slide bars

Following this preparation much of the lower part of the locomotive is now assessed as ready to be primed once dry or requiring just a small amount of wire brushing to allow priming.  (A key part of the need to agree how each area is to be painted was that the spray epoxy does not require a primer while the brush applied finish does).

Substantial areas were dry by afternoon.  So painting began with priming the wheels.  While Jim did most of the work, our General Manager came by the shop and spotted the need to fill in a gap.  It is a rarity to seem Jamie at work in the Steam Shop so we have recorded this event as our ceremonial first painting on 1630.

Jamie does the ceremonial first painting

By end of day three wheels were primed.  The ability to start painting created a lot of enthusiasm.  I received the picture below from Jim.  By Sunday several of the wheels are finished with the black top coat.

Impressive progress by Sunday

On the superstructure, part of the preparation for spraying is removal of pipes that will create shadows when spraying.  One of these is the steam supply for the air pump that runs from the governor high up on the fireman’s side of the firebox.

The pipe runs from the union at top down the join between firebox and barrel

Collin needed to re-lag this anyway so he and Paul managed to release a union and remove it.  As with lots of things on an old steam engine, one thing leads to another.  It was obvious that moisture trapped in the lagging had caused some corrosion on the steel pipe.  After thorough wire brushing and hammer testing no obvious failures were found but it was clearly not in good condition so the decision was made to have a replacement fabricated.  In matters like this we want to avoid any doubt and there is currently time to have the replacement made before the season.

Collin removes the lagging

Paul removes the rust and scale

Jason and Phil worked on the manifold for the stoker.  The casting was damaged and Dennis fixed this some time ago.  The threaded holes into which fit the steam connections had to be recut and then the steam connections fitted.  By end of day the manifold was ready to refit.

Stoker manifold repaired

As a “British” fireman who has never seen a stoker in operation I learned something.  The stoker on 1630 is not operational at present as the screw drive in the tender needs work.  So I had assumed that the steam manifold (which controls the jets fire the coal around the box from the distribution plate) was simply decorative at this time.  It seems this is not so.  If the fireman is feeling tired he can put coal onto the distribution plate manually and then use the steam to fire it up to the front of the firebox.  You live and learn!.

I did my penance for spending most of the day out of the shop by crawling into the firebox to test fit a sample of the new fire brick.  Although I spent days in there when fitting tubes, fitting the fire hole door casting has made this a whole new experience.  What used to be a simple exercise is now more like getting toothpaste into a tube for one of my build.  Anyway the conclusion after Jason and Phil had put in a few more of the arch bricks is that the shorter F5 bricks, that are readily available, cause only a marginal lift in the arch bricks so should be usable.

On the Shay, Phil took advantage of the degreasing set up for #1630 and did a thorough job on the truck.  Hopefully, once dry and examined, this will also start to see new paint applied.

Truck degreased for painting

On #428 quite a lot was happening:

Dennis started the long job of building up the axle boxes.  The first step, on which he was working yesterday, is to build up the damaged areas that will be behind the plates which will be added to the box castings.  Once built up, these areas will need to be finally ground to shape so that there is a solid surface to which the plates will be mounted;

Dennis starts building up the axle boxes

Mike was back after his trip to Arizona and restarted work on the air pump.  Not much visible progress today.  The first big step was to locate the many substantial parts of this 3 dimensional jigsaw and work out exactly how they must fit together.  What fits where is only part of the challenge.  It is immediately clear that it would be very easy to assembly a lot of it and then discover that a key part should have been fitted earlier in the sequence!.

Jane was hard at work on the frame binders that join the frame at the bottom of each axle box guide.  Dennis has done a good deal of repair work on these and they now need to be cleaned off, ground smooth and then machined to fit accurately into the frames.

Jane works on the binders

In the shop in general:

It was a worrying day on the planer.  Mike, Bob and Ed worked on preparing it for a further test of the hydraulic drive system while Jane completed painting the machine.  Unfortunately a second attempt to start the hydraulic pump caused a blow in the gasket that failed last time, although we are now confident that the surfaces are flat after surface grinding.  This leaves us with a puzzle.  Documentation of this machine is distinctly limited.  We know it should operate at a high pressure (suggested around 1200psi).  The key question is whether this seal is failing at a pressure at which it should not or if some blockage or error in assembly is causing pressure to build substantially above the intended level.  Needless to say there is no tapping that would allow us to fit a gauge.

So back on the job and a lot was achieved in the day.  I am off to Mexico for a week so will miss next weekend but look forward to seeing a lot more paint when I get back

Nigel