Illinois Railway Museum Blog

The weather this weekend certainly had a major impact. Steady snow in the morning made me very doubtful about the long drive out of Chicago but, after a rather slow and slushy drive, it became apparent that the forecast was correct and the snow was less to the West, around Union, than it was in the city.

Early Winter at Union

It was a very select crew, aside from myself, only Phil, Jane, Ed and Jerry made it to the shop.  However, we managed to get a number of jobs done on 1630.  But first, Phil made sure that the traditional Steam Department decorations were in place.

Christmas in the Steam Shop (1)

Christmas in the Steam Shop (2)

Merry Christmas from all at the Steam Department

Jerry has been working steadily on the insulation during the week and continued Saturday.  The sheet metal is now re-installed along the boiler, after the work that was done to fix the steam leak, and the steps and pipework are back in place.  This area is now ready for painting before the banding can be reinstalled.  In addition he has now largely completed the firebox sides.  The engineer’s side is complete and in place.  The fireman’s side is complete aside from one piece of sheet metal that is set aside to serve as a test piece for the painting.

ES firebox now fully lagged

I hydro tested the equalizer tank, which tested at 150 psi with no issue aside from slight leakage from the small brass water drain cock.  That was lapped and re-installed so the tank is now complete.

Tested and ready to refit

Feeling like suckers for punishment, Phil, Jerry and I then set about re-installing it !.  After a couple of hours of crawling under and into the loco and much cursing it was back in place.  The parentage of whoever thought of locating this tank in among all the pipework under the cab floor was questioned many times !.  The tank is not particularly heavy – maybe 40 pounds.  However it has to be squeezed thru a hole on the back of the frame on the fireman’s side, turned thru 90 degrees and then moved over to its location on the engineer’s  side by reaching thru holes in the plate work of the frame.  Having done that, you then use timbers and hands, at considerable risk of getting squeezed, to lift and position it so that the threaded ends of the ½ inch securing rods can be coaxed into holes in the frame plate and nuts attached.  The end result of all that effort would not be noticeable to the average person standing by the locomotive.  But it is there!.  (The small shiny object the end of which you can just see hidden behind all the pipework).

You would never guess what it took to get it here

Jane made considerable progress on painting.  The cylinder and valve end covers are now primed on the inside and ready to refit.  The area around the reservoir for the reverser was cleaned and primed.  The objective is to get this painted so that the tank, which needs to be refitted  urgently so that the valves can be moved, will not need to be removed again.

Preparing to refit the reverser reservoir

Ed started work on removing the pipe leading to the water column.  This is the last of the large copper pipes that needs to be annealed and re-lagged.

So steady progress despite the weather.

Nigel