Things are still progressing nicely on the Cass Climax, being restored by Mountain State Railroad & Logging Historical Association volunteers in Cass, WV.

Over the weekend the third truck, which has been completely overhauled, was rolled under the tender frame. Once under the frame, the frame was then lowered down onto the bolster.

Before photos of the frame and truck can be found at the links below.

http://msrlha.org/p-early-rest-1/slides/scan0056.html

http://msrlha.org/p-early-rest-1/slides/p048.html


Cass Climax Tender Truck by Scriptunas Images, on Flickr
















The recently completed water tender sits on the shop floor waiting to be lifted onto the top of the tender frame.

Can you advise why the bolts on the side frames are installed upside down? Normally installed with the bolt head on top of the frame.

Thanks,

Richard Wilkens

Their method is historically accurate, as you can see in the Climax Locomotive catalog.

http://climaxlocomotives.com/catalog/?pg=1 (also the next page)

Climax apparently built them that way, with double nuts on the top. I suspect that the reason was for ease of inspection. If the nut is on top, it's easy to see if it's loose or missing. If the head of the bolt is on top, the nut can be gone and the bolt will look the same. Given the rough use these engines were designed for, and the importance of truck bolts, being able to easily check them was a good idea.

The bolts in the connecting rods for switch points are installed "upside down" for the same reason. An inspector can easily verify that they're in place and tight without having to try and look under the rod.

Thanks Bob. I was looking at the "before" photos and they all had the bolt on top. Must have been from a previous rebuild.

Richard

Very interesting

I'm not familiar with the specifics of this engine, I just recalled seeing that style truck in the catalog photos. Keep in mind that Climax wasn't exactly Baldwin, and these things were most definitely subject to variations, revisions, modifications and other changes. Then they got out on the wood, started bouncing and vibrating and grinding and who knows what kind of repairs were done!

I suspect that they would rebuild it based on the most accurate info they have available. Putting the bolts in that way is actually more difficult, so presumably they did so quite intentionally.

A couple of thoughts:

From the photo, it appears to me that it is not possible to install those bolts from below without a hole in the ground or some other special clearance. Could be very annoying.

If the nuts loosen in service, and worse case unravel completely, the bolt will drop down but not fall out. Instead, it will snag on a tie and possibly derail the truck?

Installed from the top down, yes, you might not notice the loss of nuts, but the bolt will stay in place.

Instead of speculating, let's look at some source material. At least from this one drawing, the nuts were on top.

Like the catalog I linked to?



Right, that's the second of two catalog illustrations that I linked to previously. (Click on "next page" at the link and you'll see the same image, excepting the logo.) So you're simply speculating based on a picture in the catalog, just like I was.

That illustration tells you what Climax was doing at the time they printed the catalog. It may, or may not, indicate what was done with the engine under restoration. I presume they used the same technique, but I really have no way of documenting it. The folks at cass may or may not have additional data.

Bob,

The one difference I note in the illustration and the photograph is that the illustration shows double nuts used to secure the truck bolts. This would seem to lessen any proposed dangers of loosing the bolt.

However, after just perusing photos of Climax locomotives, I see the bolts both "up" and "down." It is interesting to see this variation, and I wonder if the "down" position reflects in-service rebuilds or preferences of the owners of the locomotives.

It would be interesting to hear from Cass about this, but I imagine they know what they are doing, and have a reason for doing what they are doing with regard to this truck.

Yes, the bolt falling out could cause serious problems. That's why you do a thorough inspection of your locomotive each day before beginning operation. There are lots of nuts on an engine that can cause serious problems if they fall off. Losing a bolt in the valve gear can ruin your whole day...

There may be some other reason that I'm not considering. Possibly they did it since you wouldn't have clearance to remove the bolt when the truck was in place under the engine? Not sure if there would be interference or not. Then again, it's not like you're removing these bolts on any regular basis. Ideally, you'd never remove them.

The most logical explanation is that you can see the nuts and tighten them if needed. But this is a Climax, and they aren't exactly the most logical locomotive.

As for the double nuts, they left plenty of thread to do so. I was guessing they simply hadn't installed the second nut yet. Hopefully they'll swing by with a definitive answer. (I'm guessing it may be "Since Climax did it that way, but nobody knows why Climax did that for certain...")

Maybe it'll a true backwoods locomotive restoration, one truck has bolts up, the second truck has bolts down, and the third truck has a mixture.

nice work!! Where are the other trucks? Also why wasnt the tender tank painted?

Bob pretty much summed everything up in his posts. This is the orientation that they used when installing the bolts at the factory. This way the two top bars on the side frames can be easily removed (without the rest of the pieces falling apart) in order to take the top bolster out for replacing the truck gear shaft (Lima would call this the pinion shaft.).

The other truck are in the shop ready for final assembly The tank was just recently completed and some parts were just being fitted before it is painted.