One of the few three cylinder locomotives left and the only Alton steamer as well. it's a shame she looks a bit of a disaster. She looks to have a front end throttle.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 253&nseq=6

Maybe if someone filed a lawsuit they would quickly find the money and time to give it a cosmetic restoration? Worked for the camelback!

I'll bet there's wire brushes, needle scalers and sandpaper just waiting for eager hands. No need for lawsuits, just elbow grease.

But Britain and Germany have LOTS of three-cylinder locos, many in operation on the main line.............

Gotta stop thinking the world ends at the borders, mate...........

Mr. 1522 is quite correct. This locomotive is not on public display, and is usually parked on the leads to the shop, where it isn't that visible. The majority of MOTs collection that is in the public eye looks very good, thanks to the combined efforts of St. Louis County employees and the volunteer force. Of course, as we know, I cannot and do not speak for the Museum of Transportation, the Transportation Museum Association, or Saint Louis County or any official or unofficial way. I am my own person, and these are my own views, for better or worse.

Volunteers have been working on two important and interesting restoration projects. One project is the restoration of a MOPAC round-end obs car. The work has been meticulous, including taking apart the Venetian blinds so that the individual slats could be painted the appropriate color.

The trolley volunteers have been busy working on St. Louis Public Service #1743, a 1947 Saint Louis Car Co. PCC car. The car went to MUNI around 1957. Most of the work had been concentrating on stripping the car down to the body, and performing repairs on old wreck damage, and rust removal. Steps are also being taken to backdate the car to its SLPS appearance.

The point of this post is that one who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw bricks. Anyone involved in preservation has a few items that aren't in show-room condition for the public. It doesn't mean the organization is rotten, or that it is mismanaged. MOT like many other museums functions with the help of a relatively small, yet dedicated volunteer force.

I have noticed that often, posters on this forum will post a picture of a particular piece of equipment, and then begin the inquisition with questions such as "what are the plans for this locomotive" and "why haven't you restored it?" Sometimes these posts are conducted with, what Mr. Mitchell aptly calls "telling other museums what to do with their collections." In some ways, simple curiosity drives these questions, in others, people may have actual malice in their motives. They have confused, for some reason, RYPN with being the real and true arbiter of what is good in railway preservation. If it doesn't happen on RYPN, then it doesn't happen, in these people's eyes.

I'm more than willing to give Mr. Gerars the benefit of the doubt, given his recent praise of the EL SD-45, but do wonder because this is the third photo of a MOT piece of equipment to pop up recently on this site, when I can think off-hand of about a dozen good museums that have similar-looking equipment stored on the back lots and awaiting money and time. Maybe I need to take photos of all of the good-looking equipment on public display at the museum, such as the Terminal Railroad Association 0-8-0, or the Frisco 1522, or the General Pershing Zephyr, the MOPAC RS-3, the Lake Street L locomotive, the 952, the FT 103, the Santa Fe 2-10-4 the N&W Y-6, the DM&IR 2-10-2, the GATX reefer, the EL SD-45, etc, and etc.

...and that volunteer force often has to work with limited resources, which means that they often have to focus on projects which will make the best use of those resources. Few museums or their affiliated preservation/restoration groups (if any) can work on every item in said museums' collections at the same time, and some items may require work that that is beyond the capability of the museum or volunteer group in question and may be fairly expensive to hire out. Consequently, a museum in that position may choose to wait until it can afford to have the work done (or the volunteer group that wants to tackle that project can raise the money needed) before it starts work on those items.



I think that part of the problem there is that some of those posters may be "armchair preservationists" who have no real experience and therefore no understanding of what is really involved with restoration/preservation projects like many others here do, or they may just not understand that it's not just a matter of breaking out the tools and "gittin' 'er done". Many of these projects involve politics and politicking, fund raising, generating publicity (which is often necessary in order to get funding and other resources or support), and (most importantly) a fair degree of careful planning. Not every organization involved in preservation/restoration is fortunate enough to have people who can handle those tasks, and even the ones that do may still have a hard time getting what's needed to finish the project in question (or at least move forward). Needless to say, it ain't as easy as some folks think it is (or make it appear to be)...

I'm only in my late 20s, yet could spend my entire remaining lifetime, spending 5-6 days a week working on MOT's traction equipment, or MOT's steam locmotive fleet. Then there is the ongoing conservation and work to maintain even a cosmetic resoration that further compounds that problem. Throw in the fact that the average age of your volunteer workforce is rising, and there you have the situation that faces the presevation community.

Few museums, even those owned/operated by governmental agencies are flush with cash. Even those museums that have nice endowments still have to prioritize their spending on projects that would have the most impact, etc. Even in the "real world" businesses must prioritize goals and spend money wisely. These laws of economics apply in railway presevation as they do in life in general. At the end of the day, you still have to pay the light bill, have only so many volunteer hours a year, and you only can do so much with the resouces you have, including time and money.

Yes, please, a photo of this as soon as possible, with special attention to the training wheel.

Can someone enlighten me on this third cylinder? Where is it? and how does to connect to the drivers. Thanks

The third cylinder on this locomotive is located in the middle of the other two cylinders, directly below the smokebox. The main rod is then connected to I believe the second or third set of drivers. The axel is "cranked" as may be the two in front of it, in order to allow for clearance. The third cyliner has no valve gear in the traditional sense, but does use Sir Nigel Gresley's "conjucated valve motion." Mr. Mitchell, who is far more familiar with steam, could better elaborate.

Well, admittedly, my first impulse was to reach for Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work as most three-cylinder valve gear resembles something designed by Prof. Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts........

But try this:

http://www.lner.info/article/tech/valve ... sley.shtml

Frankly, it helps most to actually SEE this in action.............

Three cylinder locomotives did not find wide acceptance on this side of the Atlantic. Yes, there are the UP and SP 4-10-2s and the UP 4-12-2s, but otherwise, 3 cylinder power was rare then.

I know the L&N purchased both a 3 cylinder 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 in the 1920s. The pacific ended up in storage during the depression, and was rebuilt with 2 cylinders and streamlined. The mike was found to work best on the hump at DeCoursey (near Cincinnati), where the slow contanstant speed was helpful.

The 60,000 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is a 3 cylinder. She just might be the best preserved untouched from the steam era steam locomotives in existence.

Here in Southern California, we have two preserved three-cylinder locomotives: SP 5021 (4-10-2) and UP 9000 (4-12-2) are on display at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds (aka Fairplex) in Pomona. They will be seen by many visitors during the County Fair this month. I think one of the engines at Calif. State RR Museum in Sacramento is also a 3-cylinder type. How many others are preserved in the U.S.?

There are plenty of surviving 3 cyl. steam locomotives on this side of the pond. Most were built in Lima, OH! I know, I know, but someone has to stick up for the sidewinders.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.