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UP 4014 will be oil fired and so they are surplus. Apparently by the 1940s Alco made their grates interchangeable.

Thats pretty cool, perhaps you can CAD it up and make new grates.

Like so many items on steam locomotives, these are a manufactured accessory item: Firebar Unit Grates, made by Waugh Engineering. There was a competitor, Hulson, that made an almost identical item (but not interchangeable). UP specified these, and Alco installed them when the locos were built.

If a grate section was damaged or burned off, the small unit could easily be changed without discarding the entire section of grate.

I recall that in the early 1980s, UP sent a pallet of Waugh grate units out of 3985, to the Valley Railroad at Essex, Conn., for VRR #40.

Howard P.

Yes, new grates can be cast. FWRHS has the pattern and almost 800 new "Fingers" are now being cast for 765 spares, a new set for Perre Marquette #1225 and a new set for Western Maryland #1309. They last for years as long as you don't dump fire from the grates, filling the ashpan and burning the grates from below. But it's a simple thing to change one or two on a bar if they break. (Even has been known to be done with a fire in the engine!)

Gary P. Bensman
________________________
" There is no economy in cheaping it out!"

They getting rid of the stoker, too?

The grates on the Big Boys had 12% air openings for sub-bituminous coal. Is that a big deal, I don't know. I watched a video of a cab ride on the 261, they had to have a second fireman just to constantly trim the back corners of the firebox. Maybe, they could use a different stoker. I don't know, but they may have already fixed the problem by now.