Baldwin 26.
Ed K.

This little engine sure has gotten the royal treatment.

They've had that engine in restoration for so long I was kind of hoping, like the Reading did with their 2-8-2's, maybe we'd see it rebuilt as something a little more powerful. Like a 4-10-2. Lol.

Glad to see some progress.

Hope your Summertime estimate holds steam.

/Mitch

As do I. I'm potentially doing an internship up there this summer, and it would be really nice to be there when it first gets under steam.

There are few locomotives today that will be rebuilt to this level.

I remember visiting steamtown for the second time in 1996. This was the first time I had seen the new roundhouse and museum, which were all pretty memorable to me as a 10 year-old. Most memorable was going up into the cab of 26 and being invited to step on the air pedal and add a shovelful to the firebox. I already had a serious interest in steam locomotives, but that was perhaps the most memorable experience I've had on a steam locomotive, even though I've worked on many others since then. I look forward to seeing 26 back in the near future so that other children can experience the same awe that I once did.

Steve

Update: 26 is apparently being "re-wheeled" tomorrow.

Thanks for the update Mark- helped clean her frame 10 years ago during my all too brief volunteer summer so I too am looking forward to her return.

Joshua

The frame was lifted off the wooden blocks today, and placed on the axles this morning around 8 AM. Here is what I was able to capture.

Lifting the frame with the overhead crane was easy, but placing it on all six drive boxes took up most of the time. Slow adjustment of all the parts within the tight tolerances of the straightened frame took a lot of coordination of the crew.

At the same time, one worker was inside Baldwin 26's fire box, in preparation for her eventual move to the chassis.

Three men worked inside the frame, and watched as it settled in on the drive boxes. They also were bolting in the binders to hold the drive boxes in the frame.


As the crane lowered the frame, jacks were put in place on the ends of the frame. This will soften the "landing" as it were, when all responsibility falls on the wheels.

This is a big step forward in the long rebuild of this 0-6-0 from 1929.

Still a lot more needs to be done to the engine before she leaves the Steamtown shop under her own power.

Check all the spring rigging and stuff. Now's the time to find something in the wrong place or upside down. Just sayin...............

I'll bet that job is a whole lot easier with the boiler off the frames like that.

Of course, it may just make it easier to spot the upside down spring or whatever...

They will be working the spring rigging before the boiler goes on. Should be next week. What a job getting the binders in.

Thanks for the great pics. Exciting when after all the work that nobody ever sees gets to the point where the big pieces are ready to put back on. Cheers, John.

In the last year or so before this engine was removed from service, there was a little kid of three or four years of age that visited every Saturday, it seemed.

He found the 26 to be rather fascinating and would inevitably be towing (not kidding, the little guy looked like he could take a spot with some huskies in Alaska) a woman I presume to have been his mother, and was memorable in that he called the engine "fluffy the Baldwin". He would be almost frantic as the engine pulled out and I seem to recall a brief conversation with the woman where she was slightly apologetic about the boy's youthful perceptions and extraordinary enthusiasm. It was a rather useful thing to think how different a small child's perceptions are from an adult's, including his imputation of a personality to an inanimate object.

I guess the kid would be in his late teens now, I wonder if he remembers those Saturdays.