Tuesday, March 13, 2018

March, 2018, Work Weekend

Great day outside -- and a great day inside the shop.

Not pictured is the movement of many pieces of rolling stock and locomotives. No. 14 had a good checkout of the brake cylinder repair which was described in the past few blog posts.

Jesse V finished the cylinder cock repair which was started last month. The units were placed into their respective spots on the two cylinders




The machine shop was getting somewhat out of order. Matt C, Chris P, and Dan H spent a few days rearranging many of the machine tools and dealt with years of cutter tucked in every empty spot between the machines.

Besides moving the machines to more appropriate spots within the shop, several of them were cleaned of decades of oil and dirt. Melissa B discovered that the Cincinnati mill was not black.



Joanie M removed metal shavings, dirt, and oil from a lathe.



No. 16 was knocked down one rung on the shop task list with the D-9's return-to-service effort taking its place. The 16 had been making a few unneeded squeaks so the crew oiled and greased it as if were going to be moving under its own power. Brian B supervises Micah M in the art of preparing the 16 for service.




Rex F, Dustin B, Nick M, and Ryan F force lubrication into the steam cylinders via the mechanical lubricator's lines. It took some time to take things apart to get access to the lines.



No. 6's boiler back-end update proceeded with Kendall O, Jesse V, and John K inspecting, cleaning, and reassembling the Nathan Monitor injectors.



Matt W inspects some of the valves destined for the back-end update while Kendall O continued fabrication of the steam plumbing.



With the 16 out of the shop and the D-9 in its place, one of the many tasks necessary to return it to service is to rebuild the brake cylinders. Just coming out of the 14's brake cylinder rebuild gave the team the confidence to perform the same process only to find that the cylinders are sufficiently different making the repair parts incorrect. 

Not having the D-9 on the pit made getting underneath to loosen the bolts holding the cylinders to the frame a bit difficult. Nick M is lean enough that he was able to scoot underneath the engine and undo the bolts.


Wayne P needle-scales the cylinders to remove years of built up dirt and rust.



As part of the machine shop move-and-clean project, the obsolete vertical air tank, its plumbing, and a heat exchanger used many years ago was removed and placed in the metal scrap bin.

Rex F attached a sling to a broken gear reduction mechanism so it could be lifted off the shelf.



After the tank was freed from its place under the shelf, it was hauled outside with the skid-steer.



Rex F and Ryan F remove the plumbing for the tank and the heat exchanger.




One of the switches did not have a "keeper." Micah M fabricated a pin to lock the switch lever in position.



-steam.airman