This article was a challenge to follow for a steam newbie like myself. Would anyone like to clarify a few things? Quotes from the article below:

• " The exhaust-nozzle bridge was examined. "
  I understand what the exhaust nozzle is, but what part is the "bridge"?
  
  
• " The drawbar and safety bars were cleaned, whitewashed and hammer tested. "
  I understand what the drawbar is, but what is the safety bar? And what does "whitewashing" refer to?
  
  
• " The radial buffer castings and springs were examined and gauged... "
  Not sure what radial buffer castings are.
  
  
• " A complete check was made of the Valve Pilot. The drive wheel was examined for wear and alignment and the condition of the bracket and bushing was checked. A check was made of the cam setting and the pencil indications were compared with readings of the hands on the dial. The cam operating-rod turnbuckle and tumbling-shaft attachments were examined and the flexible drive chain removed, inspected and grease lubricated. "
  Again, being a newbie, the paragraph above is Greek.
  
  
• " ...all 177 4-in. flues were rewelded due to cinder cutting. "
  This sounds major. I wonder what the nature of that "rewelding" was?

FLO, I will try to answer your questions, others may correct me, that’s fine

This article was a challenge to follow for a steam newbie like myself. Would anyone like to clarify a few things? Quotes from the article below:

• " The exhaust-nozzle bridge was examined. "

I understand what the exhaust nozzle is, but what part is the "bridge"?

Larger locomotives had multiple exhaust nozzles, the bridge is a casting that mated to the exhaust pipe coming up from the cylinder and held multiple nozzles. I think the Niagaras had six (or perhaps four) nozzles. KJK

• " The drawbar and safety bars were cleaned, whitewashed and hammer tested. "

I understand what the drawbar is, but what is the safety bar? And what does "whitewashing" refer to?

The link between the locomotive consisted of a drawbar and a backup “safety” drawbar in case the main drawbar failed. Whitewashing was (I believe) a simple way to find cracks. These bars were massive (probably 2” thick steel plate). Hammering was a simple test; you tap the steel with a hammer and if it has cracks it “does not sound right”, simpler than magnaflux, but since the parts where so massive it was probably sufficient. KJK

• " The radial buffer castings and springs were examined and gauged... "

Not sure what radial buffer castings are.

The radial buffer was a pair of large casting (one on the loco, one on the tender) that “buffered” the pull/push forces between the loco and the tender. There was a large set of springs that “pulled” the loco and tender together, while allowing them to rotate relative to each other. KJK

• " A complete check was made of the Valve Pilot. The drive wheel was examined for wear and alignment and the condition of the bracket and bushing was checked. A check was made of the cam setting and the pencil indications were compared with readings of the hands on the dial. The cam operating-rod turnbuckle and tumbling-shaft attachments were examined and the flexible drive chain removed, inspected and grease lubricated. "

Again, being a newbie, the paragraph above is Greek.

The valve pilot was a device that measured the speed of the loco with a small wheel pressed against one main driver. This rotation of the main driver was connected (with a linkage; tumbling shaft and chain) to a Cam that was machined to indicate (in the cab) the best valve setting for the speed the loco was operating at. Not too useful on mountain railroads, but it helped with fuel efficiency on the “water level route” KJK

• " ...all 177 4-in. flues were rewelded due to cinder cutting. "
This sounds major. I wonder what the nature of that "rewelding" was?

The ends of the flues (firebox end mostly) were abraded as the hot cinders where sucked through. Rewelding added some metal to the edges of the flues to make up for this wear. The flues were basically sound, but the cinder cutting reduced their lifetime, filling in the cinder cuts with weld metal made them last longer.

M Austin, thanks for sharing those articles, very cool. My Father was a fireman on the Niagaras. They were quite difficult to spot on the turntable since there was only about 6” of turntable leftover when you spotted one on the table. Very easy to miss the spot, requiring several backup/come forward maneuvers.

Cheers, Kevin.

One little note: the springs in the radial buffer did not 'pull the locomotive and tender together' -- they pushed it apart. The drawbar held the two together.

Here is a drawing showing the arrangement.

There is a page with some fascinating detail, including the above, here.

Just tying in Part 1 here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35259

Ok, perhaps the radial buffers "pushed" the locomotive and tender apart. Not sure I draw the same conclusions from the drawings supplied.

I don't see why anyone would intentionally create slack between the loco and tender, but maybe that was what they did ?

I always understood that the purpose of the radial buffer assembly was to eliminate (minimize) the slack so the loco and tender operated with minimal slack and could rotate (ie the "radial" bit) with respect to each other.

I could be wrong, but I still belive that the buffer was intended to "pull" the loco and tender together so they operated as a single unit (with respect to slack) but could rotate freely as the unit (loco and tender) went around curves.

But I'm cetainly open to other explaniations.

Cheers, Kevin.

It sounds silly, but take another look at how that spring buffer works. The springs and the rest of the assembly is in compression, "pushing" engine and tender apart, and taking out any slack that would be in the main and safety drawbars. The alternative would be to have the springs in tension, pulling locomotive and tender together--but then all the tractive effort and horsepower of the locomotive would be transmitted through those springs--wow, what would happen then? Easier to push just the slack out instead of having to handle the drawbar forces!

An alternative would be solid buffers--no springs--with tight tolerances.

It's been written that an engine with too much slack between locomotive and tender was hard on the engine and crew. With every surge of the locomotive--four beats per driver revolution on most--the slack would run in and out between locomotive and tender, lots of banging with every driver revolution. Can you imagine what your back would feel like after hours of such hammering? Oh. . .oh. . .oh. . .get the liniment. . . oh. . .

That was the reason for this, and it was done to accomplish what you suggested--to allow the locomotive and its tender to function as a single articulated unit, even if not technically articulated in the normal sense of the word.

Ok, that website does claim that;

"The Franklin Type E-1 Radial buffer uses a combination of springs and wedges to keep the locomotive and tender apart." I belive this is a typo.

But it later says;

"To disassemble the E-1 Radial buffer to facilitate separating engine and tender, loosen the large nuts that compress the springs and remove the pin and springs. This will create slack between engine and tender, allowing for the removal of the drawbar pin. Some of the nuts on the adjusting rd were seized in place, but they were later removed by heating "

So to take it apart you need to "create slack", why would you have to do that if the buffer "pushes" (ie creates slack) betwen the loco and tender already ???

Cheers, Kevin.

To clarify on my article:

The buffer holds the locomotive and tender APART. The coil springs, tightened by the large bolt running through them, bear down on the various wedges in the device, holding the locomotive apart and keeping the engine and tender from smacking into each other.

The drawbar holds them together, the buffer holds them apart. Think about buffers on european equipment for example.

There is also a radially shaped component to the buffer, which allows the engine and tender to move when going round curves.

Also, I mentioned the need to create slack (aka remove the buffering forces created by the radial buffer) when trying to split the engine and tender because those forces are acting against the two drawbar pins, in effect pushing them apart. It would be difficult (well more so) to remove with the pins with the buffereing forces acting on them. Plus then the engine and tender would spring apart to some extent because of the forces exerted by the buffer.


Consider this: Say you are pushing a wheel barrow for example: with every step you take, you kind of walk into it if your arms are kind of loose, but if you keep your arms ridged, holding the wheel barrow and yourself apart (in effect creating a buffering force), the wheel barrow and yourself will move along as one "unit" in a much smoother fashion. I get to live this out on a daily basis, schlepping a Double Bass mounted on a wheel around town, and after partaking in the splitting of two CNR Northern's from their tenders, the analogy occurred to me one day during the schlepp...

Make sense?