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 Post subject: Pattern clearing house
PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:38 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

The thread for
Quote:
Janney Coupler parts
got me thinking about making patterns for missing parts.

Is there a web site or a clearing house that has a list of patterns and a contact for who owns the patterns?

If a pattern exists for, say, a walk over coach seat end is available and someone else has a need, where can someone go to find the item other than a general post on several web sites for that part or pattern?

Thanks.

Doug vV


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 Post subject: Re: Pattern clearing house
PostPosted: Wed Jan 06, 2016 10:44 pm 
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Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:15 pm
Posts: 1466
Location: Henderson Nevada
In theory, it does exist as the ARM/Train Replacement Parts committee... although that committee has been streetcar centric...

Our group (spcrr.org) published a pattern catalog many years ago... It is being updated but as a volunteer group it has gone slower than I would like... Over the years we have cast parts for 6 or 7 other groups... but again, as a volunteer group its hard to get all the ducks in a row to answer questions about a specific part, get the pattern to our foundry and get the parts delivered... (we are a bit protective of our patterns, so tend to deliver them to the foundry, get the parts cast then send off the parts... ) we are not in the parts business and so things have a way of getting put off... which reminds me I owe a reader here a description of our walk-over seats... which will then become a catalog page...

In our case the parts are early/west coast narrow gauge specific... with parts for for 10 and 15 ton trucks (two sizes of journal boxes (and bearings and lids) as well as center plates, side bearings and swing motion) 24" and 26" cast "Whitney" wheels, brake shoes and heads, walk over car seats, window latches, and the pedestals, journal boxes and 28" spoked wheels for a horse car... We have two link and pin draw bar patterns, as well as stake pockets and various washers, some common some more specific.

Other museums have allowed us to list turntable parts, and queen posts from their projects.

We have found that many groups want the specific part... and our parts may work but are not the specific part they want... Following that thread, I was also once (or twice) involved in a foundry preservation project that included 10's of thousands of patterns... but we found that very few had any general appeal... beyond wall art in a funky bar...

Randy

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Randy Hees
Director, Nevada State Railroad Museum, Boulder City, Nevada, Retired
http://www.nevadasouthern.com/
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 Post subject: Re: Pattern clearing house
PostPosted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:50 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 am
Posts: 6394
Location: southeastern USA
About 25 years ago, I worked in an ice storm in Marietta, GA, trying to catalog and triage several buildings full of patterns, core boxes, jigs and fixtures at Glover Machine Works to assure that their locomotive production pattern collection might be preserved. This was at the expense of every other pattern stored there, which included a drive wheel center for a high wheeled, light passenger steam locomotive from the ACL, and any variety of other things. Not every pattern we did find, catalog and set aside was actually moved and saved. Much of the equally important records dating from the Reconstruction era through the 1970s and a lot of the machinery was also lost.......

I don't know why nobody cared. I don't know why we still don't.

Randy, please send me what information you can on walkover seats and production costs also when you get a chance.

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“God, the beautiful racket of it all: the sighing and hissing, the rattle and clack of the cars over the rails. These were the sounds that made America the greatest country on earth." Jonathan Evison


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 Post subject: Re: Pattern clearing house
PostPosted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 5:31 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

This seems such a sensable idea but I guess it would only work if there was a small fee for the person who keeps the records. Maybe if the patterns were kept in a central place and the person(s) or small business got a fee for making the castings and keeping some contact founderies etc.

I guess the details have yet to fall together. Items like out of production replacement knuckles and so would seem to fit in the central location real good - items that would fail or wear out and be needed on a somewhat regular basis.

If you think of the patterns as books, person a has a book on the South Pacific Coast Railway. Another has a book on New York Central. If you put them in a Library, people can go to the library to check out the book they want.

Oh well.

Doug vV


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