A 1985 production, apparently recently posted to Youtube. It should be of interest to many.

As most know, Dave Kloke's "Leviathan" which debuted in 2009 was built to the O'Connor Engineering plans, which are public property.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2A2NEaRqg

Steve

What a great find. Thanks for sharing. Totally worth the time spent watching.

I own a copy of this film...and it is excellent. Since I bought mine from Golden Spike, NHS, and Pentrex is the distributor, it saddens me to see that someone uploaded to youtube. A film like this has such a limited audience -uploading it is a rotten thing to do.

Stephen

I would like to add one more comment to the above. I had purchased the drawings package on CD at the Golden Spike National Monument when we there two years ago. It is true that the government paid for the drawings to the two locomotives, which must have proved quite useful to Mr. Kloke. I would suggest if anyone else is interested in those plans the proper course would be to purchase the materials unless specifically allowed free access. Since our work at the Pullman Library is funded nearly 100% by licensed copies (Bombardier holds title; we are the repository of that material) that specifically prohibit unauthorised reproductions, any posting or distribution not only thwarts the proper use of materials, as a minimum it damages the ability to continue and improve access to these educational materials for the user and by the provider. As volunteers we use all library proceeds for maintaining the facility, getting supplies, and restoring 100 year old documents. Any reference to an online source to avoid purchase of any copyrighted material can be every bit as damaging as placing it there. Since the engine construction drawings CD package is available through the US Park Service, I am of the opinion that posting any drawings has the potential for consequences unless specifically permitted. Sincerely and also on behalf of others in the same situation, Ted Anderson, IRM Pullman Library curator

I understand that the replica Jupiter and 119 were built from the plans that are now available for purchase. How was the design detail of these plans obtained? Were the original plans for the original Jupiter and 119 available as a reference? If they were, why was all this drafting work done for the plans for the replicas? If the original plans were not available, how was the design for the replicas produced?

From what I have read and seen in this video, there was very little original "plans" available for the recreating of "Jupiter" and "119". O'Connor Engineering was originally contracted to produce the voluminous sets of working engineering drawings to place out to bid for the construction of the engines- the company was eventually also awarded the construction contract. O'Connor and his staff utilized available basic locomotive dimensions, boiler size, etc. and alot of photographs of both locomotives and others built by Rogers and Schenectady Locomotive Works from which they scaled up dimensions, as well as referencing erection drawings of other period locomotives. Chad O"Connor himself had experience in the field of commercial steam boiler construction and also restoration of steam locomotives.

Well, if you believe the film, it was all done by taking a caliper to 8x10 photos :)

I agree with you completely... there had to be a 'review of literature' before O'Connor Engineering got involved, since I doubt they had the resources and expertise to find those photos. I would assume that during the original research phase, whatever drawings that could be discovered were obtained and reproduced, after all, O'Connor had to have something to bid on. It would be interesting to know where the file that supported the bid process resides; also the material that supported the actual design work. The reproductions that O'Connor built for the Park Service are real nice, but I hardly think they are the last word on the subject.

I do know that some details were simply done by the 'best guess' method. I remember Bill Clouser telling me that he got a bit of the work; a commission to make a rubber mold of a bell bracket on something in the MOT collection that was close to how the bracket on the 119 appeared in the photos. His rubber molds and subsequent epoxy castings became the basis for the foundry patterns for the reproduction bell bracket.

From what I read in the book "Promontory's Locomotives", a small soft cover by Gerald Best on the creation of the replicas, Best himself was used as a consultant for the Park Service early on. He supplied some of the historical information, photographs factory records. Incidentally, there was another draftsman hired on contract years earlier, but according to Best, he failed to meet the deadline to produce drawings for the Golden Spike centennial, had a breakdown and destroyed all his work. O"Connor then started production of their own drawings, in part with Best's materials.

And it isn't unusual to scale up dimensions from photos, given certain established dimensions. The restoration of Ford's Theater in Washington was done just this way. There were no original architectural drawings extant. The NPS architects used Matthew Brady's photographs taken after Lincoln's assassination and reproduced the entire interior of the building.

One thing not mentioned so far was how this project today would be considered a "frivolous," "wasteful," and "unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars" only to cater to "choo choo fans."

I look at what we spend on a bunch of other things, including military stuff even the military doesn't want, sports stadiums (that's more a local misuse), and the continued call to build more roads (which in turn drive our oil dependence as much as anything) and I just shake my head, while things that might be more worthwhile are decried as "frivolous," "wasteful," "unnecessary pork."

And sometimes you get called a Communist for talking about some of these things. . .it happened to me. . .

Hmmm. That is what I suspected. I have done some of the scaling and number crunching work with multiple photographs of a locomotive to develop details and dimensions. But it leaves a whole lot unresolved in the external hidden areas and all of the internal areas. I would guess that the replica Jupiter and 119 are extensively new design based on best practices in lieu of having the original design as a guide.

But anyway, the reason I ask is in relation to the questions about the trucks we were discussing in the other thread. I have not watched that entire video above yet, but assume that the Jupiter replica uses the type of tender trucks used on the Leviathan replica. If so, I would like to obtain the plans used for these trucks as built for the Jupiter. Can a person buy just this portion of the plans?

And then the big question would be this: What is the exact historical basis for the plans of these trucks used on the Jupiter tender?

According to the video, detailed drawings of one boiler was available. So that was a great help in scaling the rest of the engine.

Ted, I think there is a difference between the documents you hold which are privately owned and something owned by the taxpayer.

I wasn't aware NPS was selling them as CD's in a giftshop. Searching online, I see a CD created by the Western National Parks Association. That's not the government so far as I can tell. So someone decided to scan the plans, put them on a CD, and sell them, for the benefit of themselves and whatever store sells them. (At the site, it could be the NPS or a private concessionaire.) Sounds like they would hold copyright to the scans, if they did in fact start with paper documents, but not to the information itself. But no matter, it doesn't sound like the government itself is selling them nor does your payment accrue to defray the taxpayer's costs, except to the extent that a concessionaire pays rent or a share of sales to NPS, or NPS themselves makes a store profit.

I presume Mr. Kloke paid for the large format duplication of the detailed plans which is probably not cheap but not in any way related to the cost of creating the plans. Which is perfectly fine. They are public property and God bless anyone who wants to build more steam locomotives.

Steve

Also created by O'Connor Engineering and i would suspect held by the NPS are the multiple wooden parts patterns used for casting many of the elements used drivers, cylinders, etc. I would suspect Kloke used these also in creation of Leviathan.

I suspect there is at least one extant photo that shows the original Jupiter or one of her sisters (although I haven't found it on the web) otherwise they would have been more inclined to make BOTH trucks with leaf springs between the side frame and side sills. Take a look at the photos of Central Pacific engines on this site, there are certainly enough examples of that spring arrangement:

http://cprr.org/Museum/Locomotives/index.html

As an added bonus, the first photo, of CP 29, the Antelope, has the same style trucks as the LV engine that started the other tender truck thread.

Thanks for the background. I'm well aware that dimensions can be scaled from photos, I do it occasionally myself when designing the injection molds that produce railroad models, although more often I'm scaling drawings that don't have the needed dimensions, such as general arrangement or lettering drawings. It seems that the railfan fraternity would often save pictorial views rather than drawings at the component level. You can only save so much, and yes, the general arrangements are adequate to build a credible model.

But to actually replicate the function of the thing, you need considerably more detail, and of course, the only way to get it is to start looking for extant drawings of similar equipment, or then just "best practices", as someone said, that are correct for the era.

My own personal revelation on the Leviathan was the cab... I was not familiar at all with the Golden Spike locomotives, and had serious doubts about the authenticity of the cab back wall, since with its arch and oval windows it in no way matches the architecture of the rest of the cab. Poking around looking for photos of the original trucks, however, led to this image:

http://www.shmoop.com/media/images/larg ... pike-2.jpg

Which shows exactly those features, so I stand corrected.

Actually, that cab back wall of "Leviathan" seems authentic- here is a Hart photo of CPRR "Whirlwind", sister of "Jupiter" and "Leviathan" taken at Promontory May 1869, Note arched opening and oval windows.