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Sunday, December 30. 2012Steam Department Update 12-29-2012It is a "second-hand" update this weekend, courtesy of Phil Cwikowski. I did not make it to Union this Saturday as we had family visiting. Unfortunately, absent anyone who had experience with the tube roller, we were not able to roll more tubes into 1630 but a good deal of other progress was made. On 1630: · measurements were taken to fit the ferrules for the super heater flues. It looks as if we have enough for the firebox but will need to find or make some more for the smokebox; · the flues are now alongside the locomotive ready for refitting when the fire tubes have been secured; · the scaffolding and spare tubes have now been cleared so that we have free access to the front of the locomotive again; · needle chipping of the cylinder covers was completed and primer was applied to protect the cleaned surfaces;
· the valve chambers were checked for sand blast material that could have been carried over from the boiler cleaning. The good news is that they appear clean and free of debris. In other areas: · Major progress was made on the wheel lathe. Air pressure was applied for the first time in decades to release the lock holding the back head. With this done, attempts were made to move the back bead on its slides ........... and it moved!!. This is critical as the back head weighs several thousand pounds and, were it jammed, it would require very heavy equipment to free it. After this the gear for turning the shaft of the back head was investigated and this was also turned. All of this checking is critical as these parts are normally moved under the power of substantial geared motors. Since it has not operated in many years it is critical to ensure that these huge parts are free to move before we apply power as major damage could occur if they are jammed when power is applied. The tricky part is judging the difference between jammed and normal resistance when it is normally moved by a large motor thru substantial gearing !!. · Stu and Bob returned to work on the planer and further progressed the cleaning and reassembly of this machine;
· We gathered the information to calculate the total weight of the new air compressor and motor assembly so that Rick can now identify the vibration isolators that we will need to mount it. So progress on a number of fronts. Hopefully next week we can continue with the tube rolling. Nigel Sunday, December 30. 2012Wood Shop Update - December 29, 2012There was a good turnout yesterday, and very many individual projects were being worked upon. Here are some quick views of some of that.  Tongue and Groove While I was away John Faulhaber led the way to produce over 300 feet of new tongue and groove boards for roof replacement on the Lake Shore Electric 810. Yes, we made that ourselves including the last two steps on our shaper. But these pieces are destined for the outer edges of the roof where there is the tightest radius and they have to lay down as flat as possible around that. The railway solution is what we did today. Essentially making a beveled tongue and groove. Cheryl Lint is helping John on this step.  Priming No sooner than the stock was cut did Cheryl set up and begin prime painting the many boards. Meanwhile, John was breaking down the fences, featherboards, and other tooling so others could use the saw.  Windows The first three new windows for Chicago Great Western X 38 have their two coats of maroon on the exterior, and Victor Humphreys started the finished interior gray enamel. We also fussed some more with the next batch of eight windows for that same car.  Window Post Caps One of the more exciting pieces of news for me was the arrival of newly fabricated window post caps for the Cleveland Transit System 4223 PCC car. The old ones are almost universally rusted out at the bottom or especially in line with the car belt rails. We tried to figure a way to uniformly repair and weld them up, mostly to no avail. So here they are, all new and ready to go. Eric Lorenz is pictured, much as a proud papa would show off his newborn.  In the Car It did not take long to start trying the new post caps and here you can see several posts covered as they should be. Do not be fooled. The car has had such extensive repairs to the carbody, that many of these will need tweaking for the best fit - no two posts on the car are the same. As these go in, it will allow progress in a hurry with installation of the side windows. Who knows where this might lead??  Roof Boards Nick Espevik and Jerry Saunders are planning to add roof saddles and trolley boards to CTA 30, one of our Chicago 'single' rapid transit cars. First step is prime painting a LOT of lumber. That will allow the car to operate by itself over our line, drawing power through a trolley pole.  More Wood Buzz Morisette has some new nice looking Douglas Fir here. He is taking big boards and making small boards. Oh yes, these are for the interior roof framing repairs Buzz has been doing on our ELY private car.  Still Smaller After chopping them to rough length and jointing the timbers, it was time to run them through the planer to reduce the size further. It is pretty much the same drill for any of the woodwork we might need to replace during a restoration. Stock sizes of today just will not fit the bill. Wednesday, December 26. 2012Steam Department Update 12-22-2012With Christmas close it was a small but active team at the steam shop this weekend. The next major milestone on 1630 was achieved as planned.
The last 17 fire tubes were loaded so all except for the 9 that will be installed along with the super heater flues are now in place. Then we moved on to rolling the fire box ends. As with each step, this was initially slow. It is critical that we fully understand the technique and can do it right each time before we start to do it on a large scale. However we made a good start, got more confident as the day progressed, and by end of day the first 15 were rolled. Looking closely at the view below you can see the effect. Comparing columns K, L and M to the adjacent columns, these are now tight in the tube sheet and set at a consistent 1/4 inch projection beyond the sheet.
Once we have proved that everything is watertight the projection will be beaded over. All tube ends in the fire box are beaded to protect the joint from the direct effects of the fire. The rolling requires a team of three and is achieved by first setting the tube accurately with a 1/4 inch extension beyond the tube sheet. The team member in the smoke box then clamps that end of the tube to prevent movement. The roller is then inserted into the tube. Here you can see the construction of the roller. Three small hardened rollers are turned by the rotation of the tapered pin that is inserted thru the center.
The air motor is attached and rotates the central tapered pin.
The rotating pin is slowly drawn into the roller forcing the three hardened rollers out into the wall of the tube slowly increasing its diameter. When the tube is fully expanded against the ferrule and tube sheet the taper pin has been largely drawn into the roller.
The motor is then reversed to free the pin and the process continues with the next tube. In addition to the work on the fire tubes: · annealing was completed on the 16 super heater flues, so these are now ready to load once the fire tubes are secured; · drilling continued on the fire box patch. The holes are now complete on the front face. Once holes are made in the side face it will be finally formed to the mud ring along its whole length. We also took advantage of reasonable, if cold, weather to jack the end of the KCS tender to remove the wood packing that was left between the rubbing plates when it was delivered. This should now be in a condition which will allow it to be shunted so that the box cars of parts can be relocated back by the road to allow access. Nigel |
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Comments
Tue, 06-02-2026 19:38
Always a treat when a new diesel comes to IRM! Only wish we'd get more diesel department news from week to week, I always wonder what's going on in [...]
Wed, 04-01-2026 09:01
Good job on the barn 15
Wed, 03-25-2026 18:21
Exciting to see a new barn going up! What's next, after the RAIL project is complete?
Mon, 09-08-2025 08:22
Good job on the Burlington Nortern 9976. OK.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:56
No new news that I have heard of thus far.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:53
I'll also be doing another update on it soon. Keep en eye out for that.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:47
A little work was done to it for Diesel Days this year. You'll see photos floating around for the temporary short term job that was done to make it [...]
Wed, 08-06-2025 13:01
Is steam car CN 15444 going to be coming to museum several times it was to be moved to muesum
Sat, 07-19-2025 18:56
Yeah, sadly it's still there as of 7/19/2025
Thu, 06-12-2025 19:14
Its been 14 years guys, where is the unit? Like really? Did you guys misplace it? Or are repairs taking that long? At this point be might we will have [...]
Wed, 04-09-2025 17:40
Jamie Thanks for the update. She's gonna shine like every thing else you guys do! Smeds
Thu, 03-06-2025 16:28
Yes, there is a wye. Those two have been MU'ed on diesel days a year or two ago.