Duh, I wasn't thinking. I've seen many examples of cracking, including transverse cracking in welded staybolts......it is my opinion that the ASME code should require telltales in less than 8" regardless of the attachment method, but that's only my opinion.

I'd guess that the crown is semi-circular and is self supporting?

Also looking at the stay positioning in the backhead, it looks like the water legs on the sides could be a little cramped?

I have seen some Hurst boilers scrapped within 3 years of installation (new boiler) due to weld cracks. Most of them do fine, but a few have had issues. No matter who the manufacturer is, there have been staybolt issues with cracks and welds in Scotch Marine type high and low pressure boilers.

Anyway, good luck to the museum gang and many more years of safe operation!

Mark

AMEN.



Semi-circular crowns with transverse crownbars are allowed in Section IV 15 PSI Heating boilers but not Section I Power boilers. Care to guess again?

Thanks for the information about the little Porter, Keith. I believe that I rode behind that little engine when I was a kid back in the 60s. I think she is the same loco that ran for a few years at the now-defunct Woodland Museum in Cooperstown, NY. She was a coal-burner back then and was sporting that little 2-axle tender. She ran on a stretch of track that was probably less than a mile in length, known as the "Leatherstocking Line". I had always wondered what happened to her.

Do you think she will ever run again?

/Kevin

Yes, she did once run at the Woodland Museum many years ago so it is probably the same engine that you rode when you were a kid! Kind of cool! You don't by any chance have any pictures of the engine back then do you? I would really like to see what she looked like before Tweetsie did their work to the locomotive. I have some catalog pictures of what we believe she looked like when new but no actual pictures of the locomotive before the Tweetsie work.

I think that there is a pretty good chance that our museum will get the Porter back up and running again. No time line as to when that might happen though. The repairs that need to be done are not really major - as with any restoration, it will just take time and money to get it done. Right now, both of those resources are somewhat lacking at our museum....

I would have to pull up the list of needed repairs to refresh my memory but pretty much everything on the list can be done in-house. The Porter is probably our next priority as we would really like to have an alternate locomotive that we can use as a backup for when problems arise or when maintenance needs to be done on the Vulcan.

We already have a local group of volunteers who have started a campaign to raise money for the steam train at the museum - the work we are doing on the Vulcan is being totally paid for from this campaign that started in May of this year. Maybe when we can build the funds back up after this restoration, we can look at getting the Porter back up and running as well as doing a cosmetic restoration on one of the Glovers.

Keith Rucker
Tifton, GA

Wow, I’m impressed! I grew up in North Florida and went by there plenty of times on family trips to visit relatives in Tennessee (right in the heart of the original Tweetsie country). I went up with a NRHS buddy of mine in the late 80s. It was probably a 300-yard straight track back then. It was a neat little operation even then, but things seem to be looking great now. If you’d told me then what would be there today, I’d have laughed. I’m very happy to have been wrong about the future of this operation! The sad part is I doubt I’ll ever get to see it now that I live on the other side of the country.

It's too late....I'm going to bed.

I've run a SCHEIDLER traction engine, which has transverse crown bars on a fairly flat crown sheet, and also seen a FRICK portable engine that has a semicircular crown with no stays nor bars. This was what I was thinking of when I posted, but both were built prior to ASME. As I understand it, my experience is on one of only two Scheidler engines remaining.....all of them blew up, including one killing Mr. Scheidler whilt testing at the factory.....

The stay pattern is a bit strange on the backhead....I'll assume that the topmost four stays may be longitudinal stays? The next row down (at the firedoor) is closer to the centerline than the remainder below........which makes me wonder what the inside of the firebox looks like.

A couple of guys have emailed me asking to post some photos of the completed locomotive. We finished up working on her about two months ago and have been running her most Saturdays every since. I have been behind the throttle this Saturday (today) and last Saturday - we rode 671 people last Saturday and about 640 today!

Anywhere, here is the finished product:



As a comparison, here is a catalog picture of what she would have looked something like when she was new in 1917:



Keith Rucker
Tifton, GA

She looks great! Thanks for posting.