Just a bit of reminder, those Little Joes weren't so little! They weighed 66 tons, which means a 33-ton axle load. There are main line engines that stepped a good deal lighter!

It was also a state of the art locomotive in its day--superheated, Walschaerts valve gear, even power reverse (tucked into the cab, under the engineer's position). Built as tank engines, the class of four were oil burners (due to an antismoke ordinance) and were assigned to dock and street running in Baltimore, Md.







I think the only notable upgrade may have been electric lighting.



Two of the four were rebuilt as coal burners and were reassigned to Philadelphia, again working in tight industrial places.



A worthwhile rebuilding? Maybe, but the series only numbered four engines, all of which were assigned to a job that was hardly glamorous. Their main claim to fame came from being used as the prototype for a mass produced model dating back, if I recall, to pre-WW II days!

tweetsie12,

"Y" not? - I think that is a grand idea! Remember that a lot of people here are interested in preserving old things and old ways of doing them. In your time, you may be able to use design and manufacturing techniques that remove a lot of the hurdles of past projects that a lot of people on this board would not consider - either because they do not know or they do not consider it proper. If nothing else, a new Y6b in your era would be a very interesting challenge and use of these methods.

As for the Y6a, it looks to me like it has huge braze repairs on the front engine and I am sure has a colony of skeletons waiting to pop out and dance around. You would always be under the scrutiny of preservationists telling you what you can do and they can destroy you on social media if they want to. I think would be worth an extra $10million not to deal with any of the armchair activist warriors snooping around for a project to ruin like this. Let that old thing rot - they deserve it.

As for Chapelonist revisions, there is certainly some opportunity for that. If you could get it to breathe like an "A" or better it might run at speed like one and that would be amazing - but it is your vision an you should stipulate the objectives.

I think the largest challenges are that 1) Smokestack technologies are increasingly not admired by the public; and 2) it does not provide a sufficiently entertaining experience for most people your age. You would be raising funds from now for a project that will take 20 years and people at that time will have very high entertainment expectations of very realistic immersive role play.

A virtual reality simulation might attract more general interest, allows for unlimited operating environments, reduces cost, allows for Chapelonist modifications, etc.

The immediate goal for either a real or virtual Y6B would be to get the whole thing in CAD. The test data we have from this class along with what can be obtained with modern instrumentation on existing locomotives might be able to start building thermodynamic and mechanical modeling which would be necessary for either building a physical modified locomotive or a simulation.

Anyway, I would encourage you to pursue your passion and consider mechanical engineering as a profession, as well as get close to and apprentice anyone with the necessary skills and knowledge you can. As you go through school, take the opportunity to work on this project.

Good luck!

Matt

Hey tweetsie ,

A dream/mission is usually an up hill battle . Your biggest and most important supporter is usually facing you in the mirror . Look what George Washington Ferris Jr. and Isambard Kingdom Brunel accomplished starting with sketches on blank sheets of paper . You're at least starting with most of the engineering done .
A career in mechanical and civil engineering may smooth out some bumps and help with the bucks .
Good Perseverance .

You mean like an E2 or a J50?

To begin with, thanks for the comments on my idea thus far! I’ve been thinking about some additional thoughts regarding this theroretical trust to rebuild this behemoth, and I need to know some info cost-wise. How much did it cost to build a Y6b? I could get a rough estimate for the cost if I knew how much these things cost to build back in the day, and then calculate for inflation to get that estimate. I currently estimate It will cost between 15 to 20 Million Big Ones.

The problem is that a historical cost, even adjusting for float coming off Bretton Woods and then cumulative inflation, does not reflect what the cost of your replica would be.

N&W built these engines in well-equipped shops with many specialized tools, using employees with extensive experience and skill. It was able to buy complicated auxiliaries and specialty parts (for example, cast beds and superheater elements) from established specialty firms as necessary. In maintaining them, many parts could be obtained from stores or even borrowed from other locomotives. And if something broke or failed, the engine would be brought back to the shop as a matter of course, not as something interrupting the core business of the railroad.

On top of that, the number you 'need to know', as Preston Cook has famously said on a number of occasions, keeps moving up and can be expected to do so independent of economic conditions. So, as with most pro formas for new companies, the numbers don't actually mean very much by the time you get to the year they would be applicable. That's bad enough for restorations that only take a couple of years ... or restorations that are done on volunteer time with no required finish date or overall cost. But I get the idea you want to do a combination of fundraising and crowdfunding to build this, and your effective lead time is waaaaaaaaay too long to get numbers that will be inflated beyond proper rational expectation even by the time you start substantial construction.

So you're really not going to get anything meaningful out of historical cost of a Y6b; you're actually better off doing what you've already done and naming a high figure to cover reasonable contingencies -- the only real question being if, even so, you've truly accounted for all those contingencies.

I'd recommend a cash reserve not less than about $4 million from the first day you expect operating the thing in public, over and above any construction cost or providing maintenance equipment, facilities, training, etc. to run it. That was the amount that the City of Nashville wanted in hard escrow against any failure of locomotive 576 in excursion operation once restored ... and I think it is a reasonable number. You could do this with an equivalent amount of insurance coverage ... but that is subject to cancellation at almost any time with no promise of replacement at any figure, so I wouldn't rely on that.

On the other hand, I think the people posting here would be able to get most of the work done on a replica Y6 if you had the ability to spend, rather than just raise or promise, $15 to $20 million. The hard part is getting it credited fully to your account, so you can be the one under the 'golden rule' who makes the rules.

Okay, I've been hearing a lot about 2156, so how much of 2156 is the same to the y6b?

As modified with the larger firebox, almost functionally identical to a Y6b. There were relatively minor things with influence on running reliability and overall cost reduction; a good N&W historian or enthusiast can probably list them for you from memory (my references are inaccessible right now). The more important point is that the experience of watching a revived 2156 would be indistinguishable in any meaningful respect from watching a replica Y6b.

The jokers here are: first, would NMT allow full restoration and then operation of the locomotive in the first place, and second, would historic preservationists disagree about the compromises with 'preserving historic fabric' of the only remaining modernized Y-class that would be necessary to make it a reliable excursion locomotive? Neither of these hurdles is by any means certain, and both of them involve being able to show considerable cash-on-hand before you even consider starting work.

Let's do a little thought experiment. Let's say Jerry Jacobson secretly built one at Sugarcreek, and it's all ready to go FRA certified, tested and in perfect condition sitting in a stealth cloaked section of the property. They just found a clause in his will donating it to you, shipped free to anywhere you want it to go (We won't ask how...)

What would you do with it? Where would you store it? Where would you run it? What would you do for coaches? I'll assume you'll maintain it, since your original question was about building one, so I'll give yo the benefit of the doubt and assume you have the skills to keep one in good repair. But the costs are still significant.

My point here is simple. Even if you were handed one in perfect condition for free, this would be a gigantic white elephant, and the care, feeding and exercising of said beast would be an incredible challenge.

If you had $20M, why would you bother to pull any passengers at all or tell the public when and where you were going to run it? Why not just run it on a private mine railroad for the sponsors who paid big bucks until they are bored and then leave it on a siding?

Leave it on a siding? No, you dismantle it so no one else gets to play with it!

My vote would be to build an engine that had been proposed but never built, one that would have advanced steam technology. Like Lima's double bubble 4-8-6. On a more practical level, an Americanized version of Wardale's 5AT. For a tourist line, one of Porta's tank engines. If I had enough money, I would start with fabricating a boiler with a water tube firebox incorporating modern welding and metallurgy.
Tom Hamilton

Would it make more sense to make restore 2156?

I agree with J3a-614 on having a little Joe 4 wheel switcher to be built it makes a lot more sense to do than a Y6b. although I would like to see a logging mallet to be rebuilt or built from scratch. If you want to build a articulated than build a logging mallet since I think the largest one was 140 tons. I could be wrong about that. For a mainline loco to be built from scratch would a B&M Berk I would love to see that. If you a build a brand new steamer you to focus on size and weight which determine that it is financially economical to operate because it determine where to run and store it.

You could start with the design for the small Berkshires that ran on the "old" Norfolk Southern, which would be a great size for a larger tourist line, and apply Van Swearingen, Porta, Wardale and Chapelon thinking to it. I believe all of them went to Mexico and were scrapped. A vest pocket Superpower Berk dash 2?