Illinois Railway Museum Blog

There was a relatively small turnout this week but some key progress was achieved despite the fact that several people had to leave early for the Soiree and other commitments.

On 1630 much of the day was spent on woodwork.  It was clear from the dust production last weekend that much more effective sealing was required to allow cleaning of the tube sheets themselves.  (To do this the gun must be aimed directly at the sheet and therefore the tube holes).  Thru Rick's efforts we now have ply sheathing in place on both tube sheets.  This allows Collin to blast directly on the tube sheet without too much escape of debris into the shop.

Front tubesheet sheathed for cleaning

This shows the sheathing at the front end.  Hidden progress is that the rear tube sheet is similarly sheathed in the firebox and the front tube sheet was actually blast cleaned behind this sheathing yesterday.  With this in place we should now be able to complete the cleaning fairly quickly.

Another job that we started to progress was the inspection and preparation of the super heater flues.

These were sandblasted by an external contractor and are now thoroughly clean.  However, you can clearly see the rough cut ends resulting from cutting by the torch or rotating tube cutter.

Flues cleaned by sandblasting

Each must be inspected for excessive pitting and then painted with the Apexior boiler coating.

Flues coated with Apexior

Then the rough ends must be removed using the large band saw.  The method and set up was established yesterday and the first tube cut. 

Clean cut and ready for safe ending

This will now be a continuing task to do the same to the remaining 15 tubes.  Once all are done we will bring in a specialist to weld on new material to bring them back to the required length ready for refitting.

In other areas, Tom continued machining parts for the piston valves on  428 while Stu, Bob and Ed were cleaning the hydraulic pump for the planer.  Refurbishing this machine will significantly simplify the machining of large components such as axle boxes.

Hydraulic pump for the planer

Nigel Bennett