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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:25 pm 

Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:40 pm
Posts: 840
p51 wrote:
Tom Davidson wrote:
I haven't heard any news in several months.

You probably won't be hearing anything for several years.
643 is one of those locomotives I've long since given up on hearing anything about until what will probably be an 'out of the blue' news flash of some kind, either good or very bad...



Or an estate sale.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:10 pm 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
IIRC, the tubes were not changed on 643 in the 80s. The tubes are the same ones that the Bessemer put in before they retired the loco.

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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:29 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:40 pm
Posts: 840
Hot Metal wrote:
IIRC, the tubes were not changed on 643 in the 80s. The tubes are the same ones that the Bessemer put in before they retired the loco.


People keep getting hung up on the tubes. The 1,472/15 is not about the tubes.
It's about the inspection and UT of the boiler. In most cases, all or most of the tubes have to be removed to do that job properly. That's where people get the erroneous idea that the tubes have to be completely replaced.

The same tubes, after inspection, can be re-ended and put back in if the owner wants to do that. However, when all costs are considered, many if not most owner operators choose to install new ones regardless of the condition of the old ones, simply because that is much faster and, depending on the source of labor (paid vs. volunteer) it is usually cheaper.

However, this makes me doubt that much, if any, of an interior boiler inspection was
performed on 643 in the '80s.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 7:55 am 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
That is the point I was trying to make Lincoln Penn, that no interior inspection was done.

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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 9:20 am 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
I think if there's a solid plan of operation, people behind it backing it making it work, a place to run with excursion cars...you'll go for the inspection.

its not happenning as far as I can see.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:53 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:25 pm
Posts: 2329
Location: The Atlantic Coast Line
The last digest on this engine can be found here. It went on for 5 pages.

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37686&hilit=643

Wesley


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:15 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2004 3:07 pm
Posts: 705
B&LE 643 is where it is, doing what it's doing because it is such an enormous beast of a locomotive that any conceivable thought of operation is wildly overoptomistic and not based in fact. It would make a great museum static exhibit, as it did while preserved at Greenville by the railroad. Too bad it wasn't left there, otherwise it might be in better hands today.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 4:21 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:07 pm
Posts: 203
It's impossible to imagine an alternate history with any certainty, but it would seem that historic preservation might have been better served if the 3-engine Greenville collection had never been broken up.

Tom


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 5:04 pm 
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Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2004 2:46 pm
Posts: 2667
Location: Pac NW, via North Florida
Having seen enough static locomotives slowly converting over to loco-shaped piles of rust, I wouldn't have bet on the engine being better off in a park.

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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2015 6:50 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:18 am
Posts: 279
Photo taken last month


Attachments:
BLE 643 2.jpg
BLE 643 2.jpg [ 257.88 KiB | Viewed 9323 times ]
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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:28 am 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
I was just thinking you could retire the blind driver with a thinner tire, or think about putting a flanged tire on it.

The UP 4-12-2 originally had blind center tires but they tested it out and flanged them instead.

Little River RR 110 4-6-2 has a blind center driver, it might not be a wider design but its running everywhere.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 2:09 am 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
p51 wrote:
Having seen enough static locomotives slowly converting over to loco-shaped piles of rust, I wouldn't have bet on the engine being better off in a park.


never say never


Image

Image

your comment is overexxageration without positive imagination of what can be done.

besides that, I believe any of the 4-8-0's could be fully restored to operation.

643 is lots closer to operational. If you can get a big boy going, what da heck...get this girl back on track


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:08 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11482
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
dinwitty wrote:
If you can get a big boy going, what da heck...get this girl back on track

First, who is this "you" of which thou speaketh????? That makes ALL the difference in the world. Give me the enthusiastic backing, budget, and blessings of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, and even I could get 643 moved and running.

Second, "we" HAVEN'T "gotten a Big Boy going" yet. And there's now some serious, somewhat well-founded speculation as to whether the operative word should be "when" or "if."


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 9:53 am 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
that arguement is repetitive what needs to be done for 643 and the solutions have already been spelled out tried/retried, its just reblowing the same hot air.


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 Post subject: Re: B&LE 2-10-4 643 --- any news?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:04 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 am
Posts: 6399
Location: southeastern USA
Now we have 7 pages of the same lack of new relevant information being recycled on two threads at once. This one is a victim of lack of foresight and critical wishful thinking at the wrong time. The mass of critical problems to be solved to just get her where she can be dealt with is now overwhelming - not impossible, just beyond the means of all the most likely suspects, and requiring something akin to divine intervention to be solved.

Until there's real news, let's shut up and let it go.

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