On Saturday, the Emma Nevada restoration group at the Southern California Railway Museum (SCRM) (formerly the Orange Empire Railway Museum) in Perris, California posted photos of welding repairs they've made to the Emma Nevada. They are attached here. As you may know, the Emma Nevada is an 1880s Baldwin narrow gauge 2-6-0 steam locomotive that's probably most famous for its ownership by Disney cartoonist Ward Kimball before donation to OERM/SCRM.

From the photos, it appears the plates were cut and filet welded onto the frame, covering the cracks. In other words, what you see here isn't original repairs by former owners.

Strangely, after some people asked questions about the methodology of the repair, the post disappeared. Can anyone guess why?

Standard Practice is hardly standard any more... Yikes.

Yikes.

Well at least the comments that several of us made gave them pause. Hopefully they will choose to do the right thing, grind those scabs off and do the correct repair. z

I had no idea that OERM changed their name. I was wondering when the Emma Nevada had been moved!

If their plan is simply to have it gently moveable around the shop that's probably an OK temporary stopgap. For operation on its own power certainly a real repair would have been expected. Without knowing more I'm hesitant to judge. Sometimes you do what you have to do for now knowing you'll go back and do something better later on.

They pulled the saddle off to have the cracks repaired in it. Their intent is operation but if they thought this was a good frame repair, what other things are they doing that is also going to be suspect. Kinda kills the credibility of the effort to 1) not know that this is the wrong repair, and 2) not have the presence of mind to know not to display such a repair on social media.

I don’t have anything more to add to what’s been said for this particular project but I’ll throw out this friendly reminder as it applies to all our projects (with apologies to John Wooden for bastardizing his quote): If you don’t do it right the first time, when will you have the time and/or money to do it over?

Just food for thought….

How old are those cracks? Where they there when Ward Kimball operated the engine on his 1000 foot line?

Words fail me at a time like this.

It's understandable that putting band-aids over a crack isn't a good solution, but out of curiosity what would be the proper procedure for repairing cracks in the frame?

Guessing it would be to grind out the crack and then fill the area with weld. I would also guess that this area would then have to be heat treated to relieve the stress.

Roger

The basic procedure is:

Grind out defect completely.
Vee out the area to be welded.
Preheat area.
Control interpass temps as welding proceeds (don't put too much heat into the weld).
Stress relieve with peening the weld beads between passes.
When weld is finished, or finishing work for the day, cover with an insulating blanket for slower cooling.
Stress relieve with localized heating upon completion.

It may be desirable/necessary to jack the vee'd out area open or closed, to compensate for weld shrinkage ("pulling").

I recall hearing from Strasburg personnel that N&W 475 had numerous frame cracks repaired successfully.

Howard P.

My first reaction was "Wow". I could not wrap my head around the picture. And didn't even want too. But I thought it over and just remember all the times people on this web site jump in with both feet making all sorts of assumptions on how, what and where people are doing with their equipment. At first glance it looks like an emergency repair that was poorly done. But I am with Dave on a wait and see approach. Was the idea to patch the sides to keep the frame aligned during the process of repairing the top and bottom parts first or hold it in place long enough to maintain both rigidity and placement. I cannot fathom this was considered a finished repair. So I only hope there is way more to this story than a scabby patch. I hope this picture was bait to catch those who jump to conclusions off guard rather than an actual repair. The possible "finished repair aspect" of that picture is way to scary for me to focus on.

But after reading so much BS during other restorations and just pure fabricated gossip by people who do not have any idea on what they are talking about, I choose, like Dave, to wait and see. If that picture "is the story", I will have lost even more respect for mankind. Maybe a volunteer with a welding class under his belt came in and decided to help without consulting people in charge? So best of luck to the engine and anybody involved. Regards, John.

If that was the intent, those plates would not be robust enough (at least in my opinion) to maintain any straightness or alignment. A few passes of welding and those plates would pull and bend without hesitation.

Frame repairs I have done are exactly as Howard P. described above, plus NDT after the cracks are ground out to verify they are gone, and after the repair is completed as well. I backed the area to be welded with a hefty I-beam about 8 feet long, not some scabs of plate.

I'm waiting to see what they have to say about it as well, so this isn't some snap judgement of me assuming what they're intent was with it. I'm hoping it's not what others have assumed.

It was presented as the final, complete repair on the original posting (now since removed) on the official page of the locomotive's restoration. I'm not sure how effective such an approach would be if it were "bait" as the "bait" would harm credibility. Even if it were after applied reinforcement, on top of a repair of the crack itself, the quality of the welds on those plates would make me question the quality of the full-pen weld on the frame.

I think these people sincerely had no idea what they were doing, and in preservation, it's more common than we'd like to admit.

If we intend to discuss the quality of the welds, we need to first ask about the material to which it is being welded. Steels were kind of new back then..... and iron needs different techniques and materials for a weld than what we know as "steel" these days. If the frame leans towards wrought iron.....