Illinois Railway Museum Blog

It was a good day for working inside the shop !.  Temperatures outside discouraged anything but limited activity.

On 1630 steady progress was made on the work list:

·         Rick completed screwing the sheet metal section around the radius of the backhead.  He has now moved on to making and fitting some additional sheet metal against the front sheet of the cab, where there was a gap that exposed some insulation;

·         I removed the injector overflow (coal and footplate spray hose), which was leaking dangerously during test running.  The fittings have all been cleaned and refitted.  All we now need is a length of new hose;

·         Ralph managed to remove the steam line to the blower, remade the joint that was noted as leaking under steam pressure, then refitted the whole assembly.  So that issue should now be fixed;

·         Collin and Ralph then removed the two injector steam lines.  These are large copper pipes that need to be annealed periodically.  So we will do this and then renew the insulation that is wrapped around them;

Injector steam pipes removed

·         Jerry worked on the insulation along the boiler.  This is a slow and tricky job as we need to close all the small gaps in the sheet metal that could allow water to get in when the loco is outside in heavy rain.  He has made good progress on making the firebox sided cladding sheets, where the insulation is attached to the sheet metal.  In this shot you can also see where the injector steam pipes were removed.  This also clearly shows the reason for different way of lagging this area.  The exposed heads, that can be seen where the cladding is still missing, are rigid stays with tell-tale holes.  These must be checked annually, hence the need to remove the sheet metal and lagging frequently.

Firebox lagging progress

He also located and test fitted some special strips of banding that close the gap against the front sheet of the cab.  We had wondered why we had such a large gap there until he found the missing strips !!;

·         Phil, with Evelina and Eddie, spent a dirty and unpleasant morning in the firebox.  They managed to match the fire bricks to the gaps between the arch tubes, where they form the brick arch, and produce a diagram that tells us exactly how many bricks of each of the 5 types we need to build the arch;

DIY brick arch kit in the firebox

·         We then made a cold trip to the service box car and found the spares we needed to have a complete set in the firebox ready to build the arch.  Phil and I then checked the Milwaukee box car out in yard 13.  This confirmed that we have large stocks of 4 types of brick (which came from Eagle Pitcher in the 1970’s) but need to make a pattern for the smallest ones which fit over the arch tubes against the tube sheet;

·         Jane painted the straps that secure the air tanks.  Phil and I set up the cylinder front covers ready for her to paint so that these will be ready for fitting once Tom has completed measurement of the valve chambers;

·         Evelina worked with Dennis on wire brushing the tender coal space so that he can weld some strengthening steel in weak spots around the stoker motor;

Preparing the tender for welding

·         I reassembled the hydro test pump with the new high pressure hose so that the equalizing reservoir can be tested next weekend..

On the Shay

·         Phil worked with Dennis on fitting the last of the spring locating plugs into the bolster;

·         Ralph and I relocated all the components of the drive shaft onto a pallet under the locomotive and I started to degrease these ready for refitting;

On 428

·         Cameron completed machining the wedges;

·         One of the axles was hoisted so that accurate measurements of diameter could be obtained.  This proved very satisfactory.  The tires have ample thickness to allow them to be re-profiled.

Around the shop

·         Jane made good progress in stripping old paint from the large press in preparation for painting;

·         Bob continued testing the planer.

So a typical and productive Winter workday in the steam shop.