Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Hopefully this is only a partial report on progress this weekend at the steam shop.

On 1630 we were not able to progress the sand blasting on Saturday as our critical volunteers (i.e. those who can fit thru the inspection hole and work inside !!) had other commitments.  However,  Collin and Jason are able to work Sunday so this vital job is being progressed as I write.

Update - Collin and Jason did indeed make major progress on Sunday.  The front of the barrel and tube sheet are now complete and the equipment moved to the rear ready to complete that end on Saturday.  Good job guys.

Mike and Stu made considerable progress drilling the holes for the rivets that will hold the firebox corner patch.

Drilling pilot holes for the rivets

In addition we started to plan the process of safe ending and testing the super heater flues.

Those of us too large to fit thru the manhole did however make substantial progress on the Shay.  The truck was again shunted out of the South end and steam cleaned, first with the steam shop equipment and then using the far more powerful machine kindly loaned by the car shop.  With several of us taking it in turns over about 5 hours the truck is now probably clean enough to inspect.  It was an interesting job.  Hard grease, softened by steam and blasted by high pressure tends to fly in all directions - including back at the operator.  Cleaning yourself after several hours of this is not a trivial exercise !!.

Paul hard at work

This makes an interesting comparison to last week.  Now we can now needle chip the frames for final inspection and painting.

Now we can see the detail

Nigel