Illinois Railway Museum Blog

This week we have an extremely second hand report put together in a hotel room in Australia based upon the input from Phil, Eric, Collin and the guys.

On 1630 a lot of progress was made in small key steps. It didn't seem like much but a lot of the work done will allow for major steps to be accomplished next week. The effort is focused on getting everything into place to pressure test the super heater elements and test the air system (under house air initially to ensure we have integrity before we run the air pump). 

·         In the cab:

A team consisting of Collin, Ed, Jason and the two Brians discovered that a piece of the sheet metal covering the lagging around the radius of the firebox had a small alignment problem. The piece had a hole for the steam chest pressure gauge pipe to pass through. This pipe was rotten and was replaced during the winter. The pipe was replaced in a slightly higher location that originally located and thus did not fit through the sheet metallic as planned. The sheet metal was modified and the cab sheet metal is now almost complete.

Ed works on fitting piping

The throttle was adjusted.  Jason and Brian Davies worked on this project, which is ongoing.  This is proving to be tricky as minor variations in the setting of the throttle lever cause it to foul other equipment.

Brian struggles with the throttle

The fire hole doors were reassembled and a lot of the key piping was figured out. Several more pieces of the cab jacketing were put on.

·         Cameron and David worked on reassembling the blast pipe in the smoke box. The contact surfaces were cleaned and the blast pipe and blanking plate were installed and tightened down.  So this is now sealed and ready for the pressure test.

Blast pipe in place and sealed for testing

·         The fireman’s side main air tank was installed.  It took a lot of fussing around trying to get the air tank installed but after a lot of back and forth we were able to get the air tank in and the “U” bolts on it.

·         Work continued the jacketing.  As the old jacketing is being assembled several small places between the jacketing have exposed insulation.  So, several new pieces of jacketing have been made. These new pieces will go in as filler over the small gaps.  Eric with help from Philip worked on making the new pieces of sheet metal.

·         Jerry and Jim worked on putting the insulation on the fire box. A long and slow process as many little pieces must be made in order to be fit between the flexible stay bolts.

Lagging of firebox in process

·         Mike worked on the air compressor.  Just the top valve is left to go on it.  Mike says it is in good shape as the picture shows.

View into valve seat of air pump

It now just needs to be cleaned up and then it can be reassembled and the air compressor can be tested.

In other areas:

·         Phil finished drilling the hole in the bolster of the Shay to the proper size. It is now ready for the bushing to be pressed in.

·         Bob continued to assemble small pieces of piping to the planer. It is slowly getting closer to operational condition.

So, overall there was a lot of progress toward the critical testing.  Hopefully there will be a lot more to report next week.

Nigel