Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Thanks to Roger for the update in my absence last week.  Having arrived back from the UK Friday, the jet lag made Saturday at the steam shop harder than usual for me !.  However the team made good progress in a number of areas despite my preoccupation with what time of the day or night it was.

On 1630:

Tubing progress 03/09/2013

·         Another milestone in fitting the small tubes.  Brian finished rolling the front ends into the smokebox tubes sheet.  In the view below you can see all the tubes now fitted and the 16 vacant holes into which we will start fitting the super heater flues;

Rolling complete in the smokebox

·         After grinding most of the firebox ends to the final length for beading, we made a good start on flaring the ends in the firebox.  We have to watch carefully to ensure that there is no movement as the tube end is flared and expand the front end a little more if there is any tendency to move but, having worked that out, progress is quite rapid;

Progress in the firebox

Here you can see the difference between those higher up, that are now flared, and the ones at the bottom still to be done.  The comparison between adjacent tubes E6 and D2 provides a good example.  Once this is complete, we can move on to fit the 16 super heater flues and the 9 small tubes that fit between them.

·         Last week Dennis finished welding the patch into place.  A clear demonstration of my limited knowledge of the finer details of welding.  It looked pretty complete to me two weeks ago but a further finishing pass and tidying up around some of the rivet holes was still required last week.

·         The holes have now been reamed for riveting and focus is now on cleaning and servicing  the air tools that will be used for forming the rivets.  The riveting will be a considerable job as these are substantially the largest rivets we have driven in the shop in many years.

·         Dave and Phil worked on cleaning and servicing the various control valves from the cab;

·         Ed continued with the pipe work, which is now getting close to completion

 There was quite a lot of activity on 428 focused on the leading truck and axle boxes;

·         Having finished the welding on 1630, Dennis moved on to building up the truck axle boxes.  Once built up these will need to be machined and the bearings fitted;

Dennis builds up truck axle box

·         Dave and Phil worked on producing a guide to mount the axle box wedges in the shaper.  The wedges must be machined to provide an accurate and consistent angle between the faces.  

Tapered block to mount wedge

One part of the guide is this tapered block.  Here it is being drilled in preparation for mounting on the plate below.

Mounting plate and wedge

The tapered block will be attached to this plate so that  the wedge can be locked in position with the angled face on the block.  The outer face, against which the axle box will bear, will then be positioned so that is can be planed flat to provide the required angle versus the face within the channel (which bears against the frame).

·         Mike was working on another mount to hold the shoes in position for mounting on the shaper.

Mike with shoe machining guide

In the shop in general, there was a big step forward in the project, funded by the Benefit, to provide piped air supply to the new shop (South end).  Jerry had put in several days work during the week and yesterday he and Jeff completed the major parts of the system.  After blowing out the debris, valves were fitted on several of the outlets and the system tested for leaks.  The system proved air tight and, when I left, Dennis was, for the first time ever !!, working in the fabrication area without 100 feet of hose stretching back into the main shop.  This is a substantial improvement as long runs of hose and substantial distance from the operator to the shut off valve have been a safety concern.

The next step will be to finish the connection thru the South wall of the shop.  This will serve the dual function of providing air for work in the wheel drop area as well as allowing the Sullair to be connected  to provide additional capacity without long hose runs.

The final step will be to connect in the large compressor.

A good day's progress.  Hopefully next week I can be there in mind as well as body !!

Nigel