Illinois Railway Museum Blog

It was a satisfying day at the steam shop as we generally achieved what we planned for the day.

Before getting down to the main tasks we had a small job for the track department.  One of our less obvious roles for the museum as a whole is as "removers of unwanted bends from large lumps of metal".  Our large antique press will bend (or break !!) almost any piece of metal.  In this case it was parts of the switch mechanism from Johnson's siding that had suffered during a switching mishap.  This was very satisfying as both pieces straightened well without breaking.  The track team took them back to refit and knew we had the best of the deal as they headed back into the pouring rain and we worked on indoors.  Well done guys !.

Pressing out the bend

On 1630, the key tasks were measuring the tubes for refitting and producing ferrules.

·         For the tube measuring we had two pairs of "inside" workers, Collin and Jeff in the morning with Eric and Jason in the afternoon with Rick marking in the smoke box.  This shows the technique.

Tube measurement in progress

The wooden beam is moved from one tube position to the next by the two guys inside the boiler, pulled tight against the hooked end in the firebox, and the colored ring shows how long the tube needs to be.  The hole is then marked with the color of the first ring that projects beyond the sheet.  Tubes will be cut to 4 lengths matching the colors and fitted to the appropriately colored holes.

The other marking (A1 etc.) is identifying how the tube will be fitted between front and rear tube sheets.  The guy in the boiler marks the rear tube sheet with the same number so that we can thread the tubes into the matching holes.  This would not normally be necessary as front and rear tube sheets would have the same patterns so you could simply count across and down to match.  Somehow, when the rear sheet was replaced 70 years ago, 1630 received a rear tube sheet in which the pattern does not fully match the front.  You can see more evidence of this at the bottom center of the picture where there is a plug where once there was a tube.  The rear sheet was set up for less tubes than were originally fitted so a number of holes in the front sheet were plugged.

The complexity of matching from front to back caused some delay but, by end of day, the entire fireman's side and the area below the super heater flues was complete.  So we should be able to finish this exercise quickly next Saturday.

Firemans side complete

·         Richard did great work on the tedious job of cutting ferrules.  He worked at this all day so that we now have all that we need cut and many cleaned up on the wire brush ready to fit.

Supply of new ferrules

The ones in the box are ready for use and the ones on the right await wire brushing.

·         Glenn and Jerry made improvements to the swaging area.  This involved setting up rigid holders to keep the tube square to the machine while swaging.  At the first run, it was difficult to ensure that the tube was at right angles to the hammer jaws so this should give us better accuracy.

·         We were also relieved to find, when we arrived, that the welding contractor had completed the safe ending of the flues.  With this done we can go ahead and pressure test them before the weather gets too cold.

In other areas:

·         Stu, Ed and Bob continued the rebuild of the planer.  The hydraulic pump is now complete .... 

The planer pump is now rebuilt

.............. and the now for the valve block.

The next challenge is the valve block

This shows it in position before removal.  This critical component takes the output from the pump and feeds it to the planer to move the huge table to and fro against the cutting heads.  The initial results of removing it and soaking in the degreasing tank were disappointing.  There is a lot of muck and sludge in the valve block so they had to remove all the plugs and a good deal more soaking and cleaning will be required to bring this into a workable condition.

·         Bruce started on measuring up the axle boxes for 428 to plan the machining that must be done to create the new bearing faces.

·         Terry worked with Tom and Stu to plan the water supply changes.  Hopefully we can borrow some flow measuring equipment before the weather turns so that we can design the means to inject water treatment chemicals into the flow as we fill the locomotive.

·         We set up the B&G water tank on the department truck ready for pressure testing next weekend.  Weather permitting we will aim to test the flues and new air tank next week.

So overall good progress.

Nigel