I also saw this from railroad.net, it doesn't mention the situation above but it makes for VERY good reading. I hope Mr. Cessna or someone else can help us to fully understand what is going on.

"I have been doing the mechanical engineering for the locomotives at
Steamtown since 1996. To answer a few questions and bring everyone up to speed, here is what is going on:

1. Locomotive 29, the little Baldwin 0-6-0 is getting a new firebox. This
is a "keyhole" style firebox, originally put together with riveted
construction. To get this style firebox into the wrapper (outer shell of
the boiler), it is normally done by separating the barrel from the
wrapper. Loco 29's original firebox had gone past the point of being
repairable by pad welding and partial sheet replacements. I was retained
to design a welded construction firebox. I did this using "flanged"
sheets, but with full penetration butt welded construction. This enabled
the firebox to be brought up from underneath the foundation ring of the
boiler and assembled, fitted & welded in place. The boilermakers at
Steamtown did a fine job of laying out! and flanging the new inner door
sheet and new rear flue sheet, as well as braking the side sheets and
crown sheet to the required radii. The firebox is inside the wrapper,
fitted and should have been welded out by now. I also designed a new front
flue sheet for this boiler, which has been made up.

The first barrel course had some bad wastage, but was still within
acceptable limits to be repairable with pad welding.
Repairs to 29 have dragged out over several years as federal funding
(Steamtown is part of the national parks) varied and nearly dried up.

I predict 29 will be back in steam, possibly for the 2007 season.

2. Locomotive 1361, the infamous K4-S. This engine got me started with
Steamtown. It is a saga or horror story. This engine was placed on outdoor
static display up on the Horseshoe Curve outside Altoona, PA in about 1957
or thereabouts. rainwater got into the boiler insulation! and the wet
insulation severely corroded and wasted the rivet heads on a lot of the
boiler seams from outside the boiler. The engine was moved down off the
Horseshoe curve sometime in the 1970's or early 80's for its first
restoration. This was done, and the engine was put in steam and used to
make a few runs over the Conrail or Amtrak mains. On one of those runs,
the engine derailed. This got the attention of a number of entities and
the s--t hit the fan, big time. Aside from problems with how the wheel
treads and flanges were machined, there were major issues with the boiler.
Suffice it to say, the engine got a hard looking-at and a number of
parties and entities wanted to know exactly how and where the bear s--t in
the buckwheat. The engine wound up in the Altoona shops of Conrail. It was
stripped down and the FRA, amongst others, asked that a Professional
Mechanical Engineer be brought in to look over the boiler and make an
assessmen! t. I go t the call and went to Altoona in October of 1996. I
spent two full days climbing and crawling over and in that boiler as its
flues had been removed. What I saw convinced me that the boiler had been
put in steam in an unsound condition and caused some wonder as to how it
had held together. Places on the backhead were so thin you could have
busted through them with a slag pick.

I prepared my report with repair recommendations for the boiler. These
included making an entire new backhead, flanging it to meet the lines of
the wrapper and roof sheets, then tying it in with full penetration welded
seams. The front and rear flue sheets were also to be replaced as was the
inner door sheet and partial side sheets and the foundation ring.

In the early part of 1997, 1361 was moved to Steamtown on depressed center
cars and work began using an outside contractor. The work progressed, and
a new backhead was made up to my design. Work continued for perhaps
three years. I was out from time to time to do isolated engineering
matters, but I was not retained to look after the job. One matter which
did surface was the condition of the dome course of the boiler. The steam
dome sits on the "Belpaire" course of the boiler, a uniquely formed
section. The dome base rivets were badly corroded and heads wasted as I
had noted. I directed these rivets be removed and re-riveting done. That
is when it got interesting. As the rivets were removed, it became apparent
the dome was under some strain and never had seated properly on the boiler
barrel. I ordered the dome removed for inspection. Sure enough, there were
cracks radiating from every dome rivet hole in the dome course of the
boiler. The dome flange had never "saddled" properly onto the boiler
barrel and that had put the rivet sin a bending condition form day one
(1918 or so). We found cuttings from the original reaming of the rivet
holes in the dome flange & boiler barrel jammed between the barrel and
dome flange! This should have been good bearing contact. We did some
additional NDT and determined the extent of the cracking. This resulted in
a section of the dome course of 1361's boiler, including the dome manway
hole, being cut out. I designed a patch. This is known as a "flush patch".
Since it was to go into an "unstayed surface", it required thorough
submittals of drawings, weld procedures and similar to the FRA for
approval. I detailed what was to be done, and a separate welding engineer
qualified welding procedures for welding new A 516 boiler plate steel to
the original boiler plate. We went with a double vee groove weld, open
root, using E 6010 electrode for the root passes, back grinding, and then
GFCAW with E71T1 flux cored wire for the stringers and cover passes.
Boilermakers were certified to this weld procedure for all positions. A
patch was made up of new A 516 grade steel plate, rolled to the contour of
the boiler. I ordered the patch be full furnace annealed prior to final
fit up and installation. The patch was fitted and welded in per the
procedures. The patch and a band of the surrounding boiler were then
stress relieved by resistance heating. We then had Radiographs ("X rays")
shot of the welded seam on the patch, one set "hot" and one set "cold"
after the stress relieving. We had a good, sound seam weld and should have
been on the way from there.

Instead, an unauthorized party decided to do some additional welding on
the cover pass of that seam weld. This party was neither certified to the
procedures, nor had he any business welding on a seam which had passed
visual inspection as well as radiography. This party took a GMAW welder
("solid wire MIG") and proceeded to slobber on some additional passes onto
the cover pass of the accepted seam weld. He then took a helper and they
proceeded to heat the seam and his additional welding with rosebuds, then
attempted to peen the snot out of it with riveting guns. They then
finish ground and polished their handiwork.

I was notified of this development by other parties involved with work on
the 1361. I notified the FRA of this development. Their first impulse was
to ask that the entire patch be burned out. I was able to get FRA to agree
to a procedure for non-destructive testing, investigation and repair of
the cracking. When the nature of what had happened became known, the party
responsible was terminated from work on 1361 and removed from the
property. If the s--t didn't hit the fan previously, it did after that
development. Suffice it to say that there was an investigation and I was
asked by official entities to prepare an engineering report of what went
on and the condition of the boiler. This meant a few days of inspection.
What came out of it was worse yet: the discharged party and his helpers
had driven over 900 bad rivets. They had driven rivets improperly heated
and improperly bucked. They had attempted to cov! er thei r tracks with
deft maneuvers using the infamous solid wire MIG and a rivet set, amongst
other tricks. I had detailed partial replacements of the outer wrapper
side sheets (firebox area of the boiler). I had called for vee groove full
penetration welds using E 6010 root and E 7108 stick electrode. I took a
look at the weld seams this party had run and knew he had simply butted
things together with no bevel or root gap and fired up his MIG machine. We
cut out windows and this was confirmed. The foundation ring of the boiler
had become an abortion in its own right.
In short, I wrote my report, got with FRA on the repairs to the dome
course flush patch seam weld, and waited for reviews and approvals. All
this took a year or so. Somewhere in this process, another boilermaker
contractor was retained and set to work.

Eventually, FRA accepted my procedures for investigation and repairs of
the cracking in the dome course flush patch seam weld. More radiography
was done! and th e seam weld- what had been a good, sound weld- was full
of cracks thanks to the unauthorized welding, heating and peening. His
cracks were "dentally excavated" with die grinders, and dye pentrant
checking was done to be sure we were down to sound metal. Repair welding
using the old tried-and-true E 7018 stick welding was then done, little
stringer beads and dye penetrant testing of each pass. We got good repair
welds. The entire seam was then radiographed and found to be sound- again.
It was then fully stress relieved- again. It was then radiographed when
cool- and found sound.

FRA came out to Steamtown in October of 2005 and I met with them. We spent
half a day reviewing records and on and in that boiler. They accepted the
repair job on the dome course flush patch seam weld. The steam dome,
having never fitted right, was sent to an outside heat treaters and
full-furnace annealed. It was then saddle onto the boiler and the dome
base flange was locally heated and worked down so it saddled properly
onto the boiler. Finally, the dome was re-riveted.

Meanwhile, back at the firebox end of things, the degree of bad
workmanship was such that the inner and outer side sheets (firebox side
sheets and out wrapper side sheets) had to come off. Temporary shoring,
made from wide flange or I beam was put in place to support the crown
sheet and roof sheet.

1361's boiler is coming along slowly. It is a function of funding and
manpower. Concurrently, the contractor is working on the frame, spring
rigging and brake rigging. The tender is pretty well back together with a
mostly new body.

A new smokebox is on 1361's boiler as is a new front flue sheet. A new
foundation ring has been made up and this is one heavy hunk of steel. The
new inner door sheet and backhead were being hung on the boiler to allow
fit up of the side sheets.

Over 900 rivets, including the bad ones the previous contractor had
driven, were removed and re-riveted. In some instances, it was
necessary to go oversized. The mud leg washout handholds were an abortion,
courtesy of the Pennsy shops last efforts. These were replaced with new
ASME code forged handhold rings and handhold plates.

1361 had been rushed out of Pennsy's Juniata shops when she was built.
Forget what you heard about old time craftsmanship. The attitude was
something like: "get the thing done, steam tested and out the door and
into revenue service". One such matter was the throat sheet of the boiler.
Inspection of the throat sheet revealed the surface had very fine, shallow
cracking. Most of this was very shallow and could be polished out with no
significant material loss. This brought up the matter of how the cracking
occurred. The throatsheet was heated to a red or orange heat and hot
flanged over dies when it was made. Putting my mind in a 1918 mindset, I
came up with a possible explanation. The Pennsy probably had coking ovens
at the Juniat a shops and made coal gas to fire their heat treating
furnaces and flanging furnaces. Coal gas has a very low heating value and
is mostly carbon monoxide. If a piece of steel plate were put
into a flanging furnace fired on coal gas and the flame were run slightly
rich, to avoid scaling the plate, it would also be capable of carburizing
the surface. Once the plate was at temperature in that fire, it likely
soaked up a load of carbon from the coal gas flames. The plate was taken
out of the furnace, thrown into the flanging press and formed into a
throatsheet. That done, it was likely put aside in the boiler shop to
cool. If the boiler shop was like most old shop, and it was winter, it was
cold and drafty. A cold draft hitting the hot, carburized throatsheet
would produce a localized casehardening. This resulted in the fine
cracking we fund. The Pennsy likely was not going to take any more time
than necessary to make the boiler sheets, so putting them back into the
furnace to soak up heat and letting them at least normalize was not in the
work plans. They saw no reason for this extravagance, probably figuring
the service life of a locomotive boiler was such that they would be
reboilering the engine before the throat sheet cracking was ever an issue.

Over the years, some of Pennsy's designs were such that things like
feedwater check valve pads could never be kept steam tight. The boiler is
deeply grooved in places from attempts to recalk areas that would stay
steamtight. Pennsy did repair welding into he 40's and 50's and it was
real bird s--t welding. This all had to come out. Add the efforts of the
first restoration and the next contractor and this engine had seen some
brutal workmanship.

OK: with all the boiler work that needed to be done, why wasn't a new
boiler made ? Look at a big locomotive boiler and you will see why. To add
to this, the K4S used a Belpaire type of firebox. It required the forming
of the roof sheet in a four-post forging press with special dies. These no
longer exist. So, the alternative was to repair the boiler.

When will 1361 be in steam again ? I do not think in the spring or
summer of 2007.

3. Other works in progress at Steamtown: The Boston & Maine Pacific. This
restoration is getting started. Thus far, I have the drawings in my shop.
A longitudinal crack in the liner (double plate) around the steam dome
manway hole was found; as was evidence the Boston and Maine had attempted
repairs. I have proposed some investigation and done some design
calculations for welded repairs. This engine is in otherwise better shape.
Its boiler is getting new stay bolts and some fairly predictable repairs.

If anyone has ridden on trains pulled by the 3254 and the 2317, they rode
on engines that I did the boiler evaluation and calculations on.

As far as "doing more with the rolling stock they have there now":
remember that Steamtown is part of the US National Parks. They are at the
mercy of whatever budgeting processes go on in Washington. With the war in
Iraq doing a good job of ballooning the national debt and other more
essential matters to be dealt with, it would seem that the National Park
Service is not a high budget priority.

I hope this clears up some of the questions as to what is going on in
Steam town's back shops.

Joe Michaels"

I recieved this last night from a friend. Extremely interesting reading, very informative, if not distressingly honest.

With all of the restoration shop drama, the K4 deserves a book written about her when she reaches the end of this long tedious road. It's clear that the project has been through perdition and that those now responsible for the locomotive want the work done right after everything that's happened...even if it is well over 900 new and oversized rivets later. I'd buy a copy of the book, Mr. Cessna!

Odd to note the original Trainorders post has been deleted. The thread remains.

KL

I don't think this is any joke. Joe Micheals is for real. I think I saw this article written some time back on Pratical Machinest website. Joe is an incredable writer and a hands on kind of guy. I would buy him a beer, hows that for a recommendation? Cheers, John.

Now the entire thread is gone, as is the original post on this thread. If what was said in both places is true it will be front page news in the Pittsburgh media and perhaps generate an investigation as well.

Please, someone in an official capacity tell us it isn't true.

Two notes:

Joe Michaels original post can be viewed at:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/11/2789.html#000011

The original post on this thread was a post forwarded from trainorders.net stating (something to the effect) that a tremendous amount of the restoration work on the boiler would have to be re-done. I was looking forward to reading a response to it!

When cross-posting information that appears on other forums - it is helpful to include a link to the original post.

Tom Cornillie

S.O. what do you want to be told isn't true?? Mr. Michaels is giving us a detailed report of the chronology of the work done at Scranton to rebuild the 1361 and the obstacles that human error/misjudgement have put in the way.
Sounds to me that the worst is now berhind them and with a little good luck (their certainly entitled to some GOOD luck) she should be back together and under steam in a few months??
Ross Rowland

Can someone describe the throat sheet and what it does?

Thanks,

Bob Bunge
(Didn't know him, but my great-grand father was a PRR boiler maker in Columbus). The interest in the technology must be in the genes, somehow.

Bob,

A throat sheet is a plate connecting the terminating circular boiler course of the locomotive to the squared firebox. It attaches to the rear of the flue sheet. Thermic syphons in the firebox could also connect at the bottom of the throat sheet to improve water circulation and add heating real estate.


Here's a link concerning the formation of the throat sheet for NKP 765; found in our shop report web log:

http://www.765.org/traintown/sevensixtyfive/17F4F1B0-6BC1-4798-9F40-F01831FB8A94.html

Kelly Lynch

I am curious about what happened to the original post myself. I had heard something similar to what the post has said so I was wondering if there would some sort of official announcement about it.

I guess it's another case of the sacred cow syndrome.

It's my understanding that the original post included statements that lead the reader to infer that there has been very recent discoveries of other past work that will now need redoing??
I'm confident that under its current leadership they'll make sure she's 100% before she gets her first fire in her.
I'm also looking forward to a progress update from the new team leader as promised. It's always best to get the facts straight from those directly involved.
Ross Rowland

The throat sheet is that part of the boiler exterior shell that forms the front of the firebox and connects to the first course of the barrel of the boiler.

I think this is confusing. The flue sheet is a polygon with rounded top, and is the wall in the firebox where the flues are attached. The throat sheet is the parallel wall on the outside surface, and is a matching shape, but with a circular cut-out to attach to the round boiler. The name "throat sheet" is a visual cue. Imagine sticking a big carrot in your mouth. Your chin is the throat sheet and the carrot is the boiler.

.

This brings a question to mind. I have been intending to ask for clarification on this for some point. Is it by convention that the boiler course connected to the firebox is considered the first course, with others sequentially numbered toward the smokebox? Or is it the other way around, starting at the smokebox (the "front" of the engine) and progressing rearward to the connection with the throat sheet and wrapper sheet?

Its evidently now well circulated that there will be substantial additional reworking needed on the 1361 in order for her Form4 to pass muster with the FRA, per this mornings post which was quickly deleted but not before a number of people viewed it and some forwarded it etc.
I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Kelly Anderson that at his convenience he share the truth of the situation as without an authoritative posting of the hard facts the rumor mill will run amuck and no doubt paint a worse picture than the facts merit??
Ross Rowland