Illinois Railway Museum Blog

There was a good turnout today at the Steam Department which allowed a lot to be done.  Unfortunately, as is the way with a major inspection, some of it leads to the identification of more work than we had previously hoped.

On 1630

·         Collin and Eric made good progress on clearing the tell tale holes in the firebox stays.  These small holes, drilled along the length of the stay, are so named as they cause water / steam to leak out if the stay cracks.  As part of the inspection we must ensure that all of these holes (which tend to become obstructed with ash and other debris in service) are clear to the required depth.  This is done with rods, air jets and, in extreme, drills.  As 1630 was not in service much since this was last done progress was good and no significant issues detected so far.  This view shows the different types of stay on the firebox side with an area of rigid stays at the lower right and area of flexible stay caps above and left.

Firebox stays to be checked

·         Less positively, inspection of the caps covering the heads of flexible stays in the firebox back head showed that some are heavily corroded.  We will need to assess these in more detail but it looks as if we will need to replace a number of these stays.

·         Matt worked on methods for cleaning the inner surface of the boiler barrel.  This has a deposit that seems to be primarily iron from the water on top of the special "paint" applied at the last overhaul.  We had hoped to be able to remove the deposit and avoid recoating the boiler.  Having tried both chemical and physical methods it is clear that this will not be practical so the whole boiler interior will need to be sand blasted.  The first picture below shows the interior of the boiler looking forward.  Wire brushing has removed some deposit from the bottom of the boiler.  The second picture shows the firebox crown sheet and the stays that support it.  This clearly shows the most critical area that we must sand blast and inspect.  The curved seam at the front of the crown sheet is a high risk area for cracking and must be thoroughly cleaned and inspected.

Inside the boiler barrel

Firebox crown sheet and stays

·         Jeff set up and tested the sand blaster.  Over the next couple of weeks we will assess the cost of getting what is now a lot more sand blasting done by a contractor versus the time of doing it in house.

·         Work continued on the swager.  Getting the dies to move smoothly and reliably is proving a frustrating exercise.  We reinstalled them and largely swaged a test tube - but then they seized again.  This shows the dies on the bench.  They should (and did) bounce freely on the springs but Ralph is here having to forced them apart with a bolt.

It should slide smoothly!

Glenn and Phil completed the set up and testing of the air and power steering on the Bay City crane.  Amazing.  When  it was moved into the current position (pushed by the fork lift) it required huge effort to turn the steering wheel at all.  Now it turns when stationary with one hand!.  With this is done it will probably wait until Spring before we actually move it and address issues such as adjusting the brakes so that they release correctly.

On 428 work progressed on several areas:

·         Bruce and others worked on the detail layout for rebuilding the axle boxes.  The steel for this is now in-house and, once the layout is complete, the rebuilding can begin.  Bruce and Tom with one of the axle boxes and the material to be used to rebuild it.

Measure twice cut once!

·         Stu and Bob continued rebuilding the air pump.

·         Tom and Jeff worked on setting up the shaper for the shows and wedges.

·         Machining continued on the new packing glands.

In other areas:

·         Dave continued cleaning the Shay truck

·         Rick built the panels that will separate the steel fabrication area from the machining area; and

·         Bob, Eric and others worked on options for set up of the wheel lathe.

Nigel