Illinois Railway Museum Blog

It has been an awfully long time!.

The Summer is always a bad time for blogging about the steam shop.  Operating is very time consuming, leaving relatively little time for other work and after that, things rather got away from me.

So what is happening now in the steam shop?.

Everything is winterized and positioned in the shop for the off-season work program.  However, the layout in the shop is unusual and this hopefully indicates a big change.  #428 remains at the South end but next to her is #1630 with Shay #5 at the North end.  In part this is because the (limited) planned work on #1630 this Winter is best done over the small area of deeper crawl space but mainly because it is hoped that #5 will be the first locomotive into steam in 2017!.

So, what is the status of the locomotives and plans for this Winter.

#1630

The decapod had a very successful running season after the incident in June with the broken truck Spring.  Thereafter all planned running days were achieved with only very minor incidents.  The most significant was probably the breakage of a lubricator line to the crosshead guide.  Some rapid brazing by Brian meant that we only missed a couple of trips that day.

The valve and running gear work over the last couple of years seems to have much improved the locomotive.  She is now probably stronger than at any time since she arrived from Eagle Pitcher.  With other aspects of the running gear now better adjusted, the most obvious unwanted noise was from the rods on the fireman’s side.  So the non-routine work for this Winter is primarily the replacement of the rod bearings of the drive axle on this side.  The rods were removed promptly once she was in the shop and the bearings are now in the machine shop.  Measurement has demonstrated that they are indeed worn beyond acceptable railroad standards.  So replacements will be machined and fitted.

Aside from this the annual inspection is in progress.  All the normal “fun” tasks are being progressed.

·         gauges and safety valves are off for testing and setting;

·         drawbars have been removed thoroughly cleaned, inspected for any cracks and will shortly go offsite for annealing;

·         the locomotive has been resounding to the tapping and banging as we crawl all over the inside and outside of the firebox, clearing the telltale holes in the stays and then checking that they are clear to the required depth.  Good progress.  The outside is done and the inside is well advanced;

Last day in service

Progress on stay testing

Main rod bearing stripped

·         cleaning and inspection of the smokebox and front tube-sheet is well advanced.

It is also planned to do some “improvement” work on a couple of the drive box wedges.  One has had a distinctly questionable adjusting bolt for many years that makes adjustment awkward and another is believed to be just about at the limit of its adjustment.  So the plan is to correct this over Winter.

Shay #5

Work on Shay #5 has progressed steadily and is now hopefully approaching the point where an intensive spell can be scheduled to get her to operating condition.

Major activity has included:

·         Dennis welding the new smokebox bottom into place.  Recently he was relaxing in his purpose-built hammock structure! to complete the grinding of the joint on the engineer’s side;

Work on a steam engine is never comfortable

·         Jerry has substantially completed the lagging and installation of the cladding is well under way;

Boiler lagging largely complete

and the backhead

·         Substantial progress has been made on the next big step, which is installation of the blast pipe into the smokebox.  On a Shay, that has had a rebuild of this scale, this is a 3 dimensional jigsaw started knowing that some of the pieces are missing!. 

Positioning the exhaust casting

Obviously, as with any steam engine, the blast orifice must center below the petticoat of the chimney to ensure the most effective drafting.  Also, it must bolt thru the floor of the smokebox and into the exhaust casting.  However, unlike a rod driven loco, the exhaust casting of the Shay is not the top of the cylinder casting, firmly fixed into place, but a heavy casting that joins with some flexibility to the exhaust pipe and is bolted at several points to the smokebox.  The game is that, once all the attachments are made, there is just about zero flexibility in how the exhaust casting must sit and attach to the exhaust pipe and blast pipe and, to ensure the smokebox is sealed as well as possible, all the mounting holes need to be a good fit.  Since the smokebox bottom is entirely new (and the original was so rusted as to be useless as a template) the game is to juggle and test fit these heavy and awkward parts accurately into position so that the mounting hole scan be marked for drilling and cutting with a fair degree of accuracy.  The acid test will come in a couple of weeks when we offer it up again and try to bolt everything into place!.

·         The air pump was finally reassembled as well.  Mike has thoroughly stripped and reconditioned this unit, so this should now be pretty much ready to go.

Air pump complete again

·         A big exercise completed over recent weeks, by Dennis, is the fire-grates.  This was not a planned exercise.  #5 was an oil burner that was converted to coal on arrival at IRM.  The original conversion, in the 1970’s, was less than satisfactory and part of the rebuild planned when she came out of service in 1998 was to fit a new and robust grate system.  This was designed in advance and parts were obtained ready to fit, including the cast grates complete with rocking levers, that were produced by a supportive (and now defunct) local foundry.  The finding that the tube-sheet required repair turned the overhaul from a 2-3 year job to nearly 20 years.  The grate castings sat unused for more than 10 years and it was only when they were pulled out of storage, to build the new grate mechanism, that it was discovered the foundry had misread the drawings and cast the rocking levers facing the wrong way!!.  Since they are cast iron, you cannot simply cut the levers of and weld the back facing the other way!.  The solution for now has been to fabricate steel sections that can fit thru the grates and allow the levers to be attached in the correct configuration.  Time will tell how well this will stand up to operation.  It is hoped that it will allow at least a couple of years of service but there is no doubt that we will need to gather the money (estimate about $6,000) to have new grates cast correctly to the drawings.  The good thing is that the grates that Dennis has modified are now exactly the shape that the design specified so, once we can get grates correctly cast to the pattern, it should be a routine maintenance activity to substitute them.

Completed grates

·         There is still much to do, including:

o   Rebuilding the front beam once the exhaust assembly is finally installed;

o   Fitting the grate rocker assembly;

o   Sealing /lining the inside of the water tank;

o   Plus the myriad of once smaller tasks that are always involved in bringing a locomotive back into operation.

However, the expectation is that she will be ready to test in the Spring.

#428

Various work has continued on #428.  The biggest has been work on the valves.  It was decided to progress the valves while the experience of the work on #1630 was fresh in the mind.  While the detail of these valves is earlier than #1630 and differs in some ways the basic structure is the same.  Extensive measurement has been done to identify where it is necessary to build up the spiders and ends to allow them to be machined to critical dimensions.  Based upon this, the plan is to repair and machine to specification and then get the valves reassembled.

Valves stripped and cleaned

#938

During the Summer, Phil and others continued the laborious task of removing rust and repainting.  She now looks better than she has in many years and is now back into barn #9 following completion of repair work on the barn walls.

#2903

The commissioning of the renovated Santa Fe sign provided an unusual opportunity to see one of our large locomotives in the open.  She was posed behind the sign along with the Warbonnet #92 for the dedication ceremony.  Sadly, she aroused less than happy memories for one of our honored guests, a retired senior Santa Fe executive.  As a young man, she was memorable for having barfed a large quantity of black gunk all over his good suit during a re-railing operation!.  Oh well.

Face to face

In the open for once

So we reach the end of another year.  I am away to the UK for a couple of weeks.  It will be a busy Winter but it promises to be an interesting New Year with the prospect of two running locomotives.  Please consider supporting the Steam Department projects this year end.  Money is always a limiting factor in all of our projects and will be critical in ensuring that the Shay does run as planned as well as ensuring that we can continue the improvement work on #1630.

Happy Christmas

Nigel