Steam Department

A short and second hand update this week, courtesy of Phil and Collin, as I was enjoying myself in New York City last weekend.  It sounds as if good progress was made on a number of fronts.

Unfortunately everything else is overshadowed by the news that Glen, one of our regular team, was seriously injured in a motor bike accident last week.  From what we can gather, he is in the ICU at Rockford Memorial and the path forward is unclear at present.  Our thoughts are with him.

On 1630:

·         The flue removed last weekend, that has to be reworked, was cleaned up and prepared.

·         The jacketing painted last week is now back in store and the last of the jacketing is now down in the shop for cleaning and painting.

·         Mike reassembled the bucker, which is critical to riveting the patch into place.  It was hooked up to the air supply and works!.

The bucker is now complete and tested

·         Phil, Tom and Mike started working with the bucker in the firebox to determine how it can best be supported to provide a smooth and reliable position when riveting.  This is essential as the core of the riveting process is that the yellow hot rivet must be passed into the firebox, put into the hole and the bucker accurately and firmly applied in a matter of 15 seconds.  If the rivet cools too much or the bucker moves, you will get a badly formed rivet and the need for many hours of work to drill it back out again and re-prepare the hole.  So there will be a LOT of planning and practicing ahead of driving the rivets

This is where it must be used

A rivet must be set in each of the holes. So we need to be able to place the bucker quickly and firmly and use it in each position, while still allowing room to place the hot rivet.

On the Shay:

·         Alex used the degreaser and put it on the front truck.  (Sounds like I had better make plans to borrow the steam cleaner from the car shop to finish the process)

Truck soaking in degreaser

·         Alex, Brian, Cameron, and Phil fired up the furnace and annealed the last of the flues.  They are now ready to be put back in the box car.  This was a very positive sign for the future.  The whole team was young guys all in their lower 20's or teens, which makes a big change from the reliance on us old codgers!.

Last of the tubes now swaged

In other areas:

·         Bill, Stu, and Bob worked on the water supply in the boxcar and started on the modifications to the pumping system.  The objectives are to ensure that the locomotive crew can reliably get water with minimum knowledge of the system without risk of damage and that treatment chemicals can be added automatically.

·         A key piece of the planer was refitted. The directional control lever was reassembled. As is common with rebuilding old equipment, this was much more difficult than it sounds.  A pin had sheared off in the shaft and Bob had worked much of last weekend to get it out without damaging the shaft.

So, a good day, from the progress point of view.

Nigel (as scribe for Phil and Collin !)