Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I suspect that a number of steam shop volunteers are, like me, feeling rather stiff, aching and bruised this morning.  However, that is an indication of a very productive day yesterday.

On 1630 the re-tubing is almost at the next key milestone.  All but 17 of the tubes below and around the super heater flues are now loaded into the boiler and, by end of day those 17 are all cut to length.  So it should not take more than an hour to load these next week.

Progress in fitting fire tubes

Those following the progress chart will notice a discrepancy between the full total of 180 and the target (171) that we are currently working toward.  These are the 9 fire tubes that lie in between the super heater flues that have been removed.  These will not be loaded at this time but slotted in as the super heater flues are fitted.  This will not be done until the 171 are secured by expanding.

After a couple of hours hammering ferrules into the remaining holes in both tube sheets, loading started in earnest.  Here Phil stands on top of the large pile of tubes on the staging.

Start of loading for the day

Phil selects a tube of the correct length and passes it to the team who feed it into the next hole in the front tube sheet.

The team feeds the tube into the front sheet

Slowly it gets more and more restricted in the barrel.  Matt (believe me this is Matt !!)guided the tubes thru the barrel at the sides and here at the bottom under the super heater flues.  By this stage he was looking rather uneasily at the space left for him to make his exit !.

Jason guides it thru the barrel

Shortly after this, Matt squeezed his way out thru the remaining gap leading to the access hatch, having finally checked that no rogue objects remained in the boiler.  Hopefully this is the last time that anyone will be able to get to the bottom of the barrel for the next 16 or so years !!.

Squeezed in between the siphons in the firebox I was guiding the ends of the tubes into the rear tube sheet.

Nigel guides it into the rear sheet

Once Matt was out, we continued loading tubes by sliding them in on top of the ones below.  The trick to this is the guy in the firebox (normally me !) who has to catch the end of the tube with a hammer handle, lift and then guide the end into the rear tube sheet.

By the end of day you can see the 17 remaining gaps in the front sheet and the large number of tubes now in place can be seen thru the super heater flue holes.

End of data at the front

Inside the boiler is a very different picture when compared to where Matt was lying a few hours earlier

Not much space in the barrel

The rear tube sheet now is now largely full with the small area of projecting ferrules indicating where the remaining tubes will be fitted.

Firebox end nearly complete

Comparing this to the shot at start of day shows just how many tubes have been moved into the boiler.

The staging is empty

The staging area beside the locomotive is now empty.  We are starting to get space back into the shop.  It is amazing the sheer volume of tube that fits into the boiler.

and the side of the loco is clear

The one thing that slowed us towards the end was that you can no longer keep a stock of cut tubes ready to load.  With only a few to go, they have to be exactly the sizes required for the remaining holes.  So we stopped loading in mid evening, having loaded all the precut tubes.  We then cut the exact sizes needed for those 17 holes ready for next Saturday.

Work also started on annealing the super heater flues ready for loading and expanding.  This will be a different technique from the fire tubes as they are too large in diameter to fit the furnace and will need to be heated using the acetylene torches.  The first of these was annealed yesterday (1 down 15 to go).

The first annealed super heater flue

Meanwhile work continues on fitting the corner patch to the firebox.  Here Mike and Jerry are drilling the patch using the pillar drill.

Mike and Jerry drill the patch

Much to our relief, Dennis our welding expert who has been away for a number of weeks, made it in yesterday.  This was critical as the team fitting the patch need to work closely to his requirements in shaping and fitting the patch.

Dennis was also able to start on welding the gear for the wheel lathe while Mark started work on freeing the back head on its slides so that it should move when the gear is attached.

Overall a very successful day.

Nigel