Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Not too much visible progress in the steam shop this weekend but actually a good deal that is not very apparent.

On 1630

·         The first two super heater flues are now loaded.  This involved identifying and learning how best to use a whole array of new equipment.

First 2 super heater flues in place

o   Jason successfully expanded ferrules into all 16 holes in the rear tube sheet last Sunday.  These were chosen from two alternate thicknesses to provide a close fit on the flue as it is inserted from the front of the boiler.

o   For the large flues the loading process is, of necessity, more complex.  Ferrules will be fitted in the front sheet only where the hole is enlarged beyond 5 1/2 inches in diameter.  From measurements made yesterday this will be 10 of the 16 flues.

o   Fitting the front ferrule is very much part of the loading process.  Given the size and weight of a 5 1/2 inch tube 17 feet in length, there is no possibility of expanding the ferrule into the sheet in a way that would allow the flue to passed thru the ferrule without displacing it.  So the flue must be passed thru the front sheet, into the back sheet and pushed several inches beyond its final position into the boiler, clear of the front tube sheet.  The ferrule can then be fitted and the flue drawn back into the front sheet.  So fitting the front ferrules is an integral part of loading the flues.

o   Initial progress was slow as the ferrules must be expanded to the absolute limit of our largest rollers, which meant that they were not very secure.  During the day we made a spacing ring that overcomes the problem so, based upon experience with the two now in place, we believe the rest should be much quicker.

·         Jane continued priming the inside of the cladding sheets so that these will all be ready to install over the lagging.  She has now completed the batch we have in the shop so we will need to store these again and get another batch for cleaning and painting.  The cladding will not look good at this stage as the outer face will not be prepared and painted until it is in place.  However, priming the inside where it is subject to heat and damp from the lagging, is essential to preserve the sheet on the locomotive.

·         Eric and his Dad worked from pictures of the backhead, that we took before stripping, to locate all the valves and controls, lay them out in the machine shop and start work on servicing, cleaning and painting them.

·         Dennis weld filled the hole for the one patch screw that must be replaced.  Mike and Tom then produced a guide and started to drill out the hole for threading.

·         Dennis weld repaired the two super heater elements that failed under pressure test last Fall.  (Actually Dennis did this a couple of weeks ago and Nigel did not notice !!).  Anyway, these are now ready for hydro testing once we get above freezing outside.

SH elements repaired

On 428

·         The first of the two guides for machining the shoes and wedges was competed and Tom is starting to finish the ends of the cast iron shows on the shaper.  The second, which will enable the machining of the angle on the wedges is approaching completion.

Mounting shoe in shaper

Finishing the end of an axle box shoe

·         Dennis was brazing the grease cellars for the truck axle boxes.

In other areas:

·         We moved the turret covers for #265 up on to the top of the locomotive.  Time is moving on and the museum opens to visitors soon.  We would be deeply unpopular with Buildings and Grounds if large lumps of metal are in the walkways of barn #9 as opening day approaches !

·         We had hoped to get some tubes for the Shay out of the boxcar but investigation proved that this can only be done with fork lift access to the car as other heavy material must be moved to get at the tubes.  (For efficiency we want to swage the Shay tubes when we do a few extra required for 1630.  It takes several hours to set up and test the swager so we want to do a full batch rather than 5 tubes when we do so).  However, we will now need assistance to shunt the KCS tender and re-spot the boxcars before we can do this.

·         Glenn and Richard worked on the safety covers for the new compressor.

·         Glenn assisted the track department in trying to start their crane.  Unfortunately this proved "non trivial" as it seems the fuel lines are blocked.  So it did not start today.

·         Jeff was finalizing the air supply in the new shop. - Yes this is Jeff.  The extent of the hair cut led many to question if we had a new volunteer this weekend !.

New look Jeff works on the air supply

Most of the new outlets are now in place.  These are all being structured with a drain on each down pipe to avoid water carry over.

Air supply at wheel lathe

·         Bob carried on from last week, positioning the planer.  It is now not only in position but pretty much level.

So a good day's progress and hopefully we are now set up to move forward quickly next weekend.

Nigel