There must be something in the genetic make up of Englishmen and their descendants


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-01/a ... ld/5642732

Extremely impressive. I wish this man the best of luck in such an ambitious endeavor. I can't recall another instance in the preservation era aside from Dave Kloke and the Gramlings where individuals built full size steam locomotives from the ground up.

The only thing I can imagine that is more ambitious is building an airplane in your backyard. My dad built a high performance Thunder Mustang (3/4 scale P-51D)-took him ten years but he got it certified as an Experimental aircraft. That said, building a locomotive is inherently saner and safer.

Wow. Like the rest of you, I wish great success for this guy. He's really gotten a long way with this. I assume he'll have to farm out the boiler to someone. Would any licensing authority sign off on a boiler built by someone like that?

How is this different than what Kloke is doing?

Depends on what the licensing requirements are in his jurisdiction. I would think that most folks would prefer to purchase a commercially assembled boiler to save time and effort-then again, do it yourself folks are different. I suppose that the government inspector could sign off on it if the builder thoroughly documented each stage of assembly (ie. detailed photographs of welds, riviting) in addition to having the inspector do a detailed examination of the boiler. FAA does this all the time with homebuilt aircraft.

I hae been to Spaulding,IL, and it really doesn't look much different (except for the heavy construction equipment outside the shed).

Steve

So how does Kloke do his boilers? Obviously he has a solution for that issue.

He picks up the phone and orders them, although I don't know who from. They are modern boilers, from the design work the NPS had done for the engines at the Golden Spike park.

OK, the fact he has them built by an outside firm, and presumably one that can certify to the applicable code(s) is all that really matters. I was guessing that, but it was a guess.