Friends:
The wheels for COOs Bay Lumber Co. #10 have been posted on EBAY !!!!!! Here is the Ebay number to check it out: 290602443610



Kevin K

Individual drivers, not a wheelset.

Someone had recently gone down to look at this locomotive before it was cut. What is the likelihood of a full set of drivers being useful to another outfit? The ebay page mentions that the seller needs to be contacted if someone doesn't want the wheels torched from the axle. Kinda sad to see such a large set of matching wheel castings go to waste.

.

Link to E-bay item

/Mitch

Other parts of the loco are on auction as well:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/dcfiv/m.html?_t ... 4340.l2562

The owner appears more than cooperative in helping save some element of the locomotive. Via the ebay listing I have been in contact with him. As Kelly has suggested can the key pieces of the locomotive be saved? The complete rolling chassis with block, gear, and rods is available if someone acted quickly and at what I would consider a fair price.

Is there a museum ready to provide space for it someplace on the east coast? I may be willing to take a stab at this with some help. Any takers?

Without help, perhaps at least the block can be saved. Maybe the wheel sets as well.

Kelly, got some apace over there?

J.R.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31681&start=30

Mr. Baker reported after his inspection ..."Because of the open steam pipes, the valve cylinders were actually almost full of water; I guess nothing inside would be much good."

Would it even be wise to try and save the cylinder casting?

Not much freezes real hard in Florida..........if I were interested, I'd pull the heads, grab a boroscope and check the cores for cracking. This could be the basis for a nice replica of a medium sized missing class of 6 or 8 coupled steam. The chunk of stuff from the front of the frame through the cylinders and back behind the crosshead brackets including pistons, valves and crossheads as a set would cost a fair amount to build from new, but at scrap value a bargain, assuming they aren't badly fractured.

dave

I'm wondering what the exact state of the locomotive is: has it already been scrapped, about to be scrapped, or in process?

Not to sound morbid, but since it sounds like the locomotive can't/won't be saved, has anyone photographed or filmed the scrapping (or if still pending could/would someone be willing & able to do so)? Having been born & raised long after the steam era ended, I've only seen perhaps a few dozen pics of locomotive scrappings and no videos. I'm fairly certain this is an intellectual curiosity for more than a few and videos help to share the visual experience. Since steam locomotives are rarely scrapped, I'd say this qualifies as a very significant historic event (and hope that if the deed is already done that it was well documented).

Does anyone have any [very] up-to-date information on this?

Thanks,
Adam

As I've posted before, I'm interested in getting some of the parts for #10's identical sister, #11, that we're working on in Campo, CA. According to cell phone photos the scrapper has sent me, he's cut off the top of the smoke box, to yield the stack and petticoat, and the top part of the boiler, to yield the throttle. As of yesterday, he sent me a photo of a few u-bends from superheater units. So, I'm guessing he's working his way down in the boiler. He hasn't sent any pictures of the overall scrapping process.

Certainly, I wish I could have brought the whole thing to California, but we don't have the funds on hand, and certainly don't have the time to do any big fund-raising. And, in our case, it is only for spare parts that we MIGHT need some day.

In regard to the cylinder block, I'd guess it probably didn't have water freeze inside, But, I think it has been something on the order of 5 to 10 years since the locomotive was moved to Florida. The water sitting in there for that long has probably done a lot of corrosion. The pistons might be solidly locked in place. A real job if someone wanted to make them move. A static display would be ok. Another thought I had, is that this locomotive would be a good candidate to be cut in half for use as a display for what the insides of a steam locomotive look like. Again, I didn't have the 40k plus shipping to CA that the scrapper wanted.

Having had a bit of experience and many mistakes behind me, I'm not too concerned about corrosion and making rusty stuff move. I got two air compressors working that I thought were boat anchors a few years back......and a water pump or two.

Catalytic penetrants or just a combination of acetone and ATF and time will cure almost anything. Pressure, heat cycles and a bit of percussion might also be required. Worst case scenario, you sacrafice the pistons and make new ones, having taken the old ones out in bits and pieces. I'd count on at least honing out the bores if not boring them out to smooth, so the rings would be lost in any case. The valves can probably be disassembled and removed around the rings, and the rings busted out, valve cages honed and new rings made.

Let's not be too anxious to condemn recyclable parts when new ones are in short supply.

dave

Jim:
I sent you a PM the other day. Thought maybe we could talk about this.

My email (ISP) is dead due to Irene. I created a temp address at porter7197@gmail.com

J.R.

I do tend to have an interest in finding a way to save at least the rolling chassis. Looks like about $15K would buy the whole chassis and Dave seems very cooperative as to helping with storage and the move. I also look at how to save an item with an eye on preservation versus how to make it run again. You have to save it first.

There are a couple of options as I see it:

1) Buy the whole rolling chassis. So far, no one seems to be offering up a home for that on the east coast. Some assistance would be needed as well. Lifting and trucking would not be cheap for an engine of this size, but certainly cheaper than with the boiler and such.

2) Another idea, and this is a little different, but why not save the important parts as a kit of sorts. Wheels minus axles, plus rods, valve gear, complete cylinder block, journal boxes, etc. If ever it is put back together, frames can be reproduced. This makes it an easier item to move and to store properly. Call it the "live steamer approach" but applied to a full sized steam locomotive.

3) Save only the key items to include the complete cylinder, maybe wheels and that is it.

There has to be a way to save some element of this locomotive. Cutting up a steam locomotive, regardless of condition, is not acceptable in this day and age.

As I mentioned to someone the other day, "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem......scrapping a steam locomotive is also a permanent solution to a temporary problem." The temporary problem being a short window of opportunity, today's economy, and location so far from its home.

J.R. May
Wall, NJ

As far as Mr. May's inquiry about a East Coast storage location:
I am an ex officer of the Southeastern Railway Museum in the Atlanta area. It is quite likely that an arrangement for storage could be worked out.

Dale Grice
POV, Southeastern Railway Museum