Got one picture, courtesy of the Facebook page from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:

https://www.facebook.com/rrmuseumpa/pho ... =3&theater

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=58920D69

Is the smokebox gray actual PRR steam practice, or would that have been graphite in reality? Not a complaint.

Stopped by with the family on Saturday to see #460 on dedication day. She looks amazing compared to her pre-restoration appearance. Does she look like an in-service steam locomotive? Not at all. Does she look more pristine than the day she was built? Probably,

Are these good things? It depends upon your point of view. If you like antique car museums where everything is buffed-out to perfection, you will love her. If you prefer a patina of use, you won't. For my taste, the painted rods are a bit much.

But she's no longer rotting into the earth and the workmanship looks great no matter what one thinks of her shininess. She'll gleam in the new roundhouse, that's for sure.

It would be nice to see one of her future roundhouse mates restored to a bit more workaday appearance as an interpretive comparison.

Rob

Painting the rods was a difficult choice. They were so badly pitted that there was no way we could have polished them, which would have been the obvious choice. We filled the pitted areas and sanded them down. The silver-gray paint was a compromise that we had to make.

And keeping polished rods rust free on a non-operating locomotive is an iffy proposition at best.
Keith

One of CNR 6213's main rods had been stored on its running boards (outside) for several years with the outside face stored up so that water was allowed to collect for all the time. When it came time to clean up the rods I spend about a week grinding that main rod with a die grinder (60 grit disc) and sanding by hand with emery cloth. Probably took off a few pounds worth of metal in the process but it looks brand new.

Fortunately the corrosion did not eat the builder's data stamped into the web.

As for rust prevention, we sprayed the rods with LPS 3 and so far they have held up pretty good over the course of the year. We periodically clean it off (and whatever junk accumulates on the LPS 3) and/or touch up as necessary.

I know this is dredging up an old thread, but I was reading through and saw that someone claims the locomotive could be made operational, with correct funding of course, with ease compared to other locomotives? Would a 1472 be viable on a locomotive such as the 460
in her current state? This is just a personal curiosity of mine.

I would hazard a guess that it would have the same firebox issues that 1223, 7002, and 1361 have. Not insurmountable, but very expensive.

Current RR Museum of Pa. management policy (preservation over publicity) would guarantee that it never operates again. Never mind whatever issues might be with the boiler or firebox.

Of course, "never say 'never'....." We saw a Big Boy return to steam, after all.....

It would also require undoing a great deal of the work which has brought her back to her current state. I would rather see the money put into further cosmetic restorations of the L1s and K4s, both of which are in horrific condition externally. Now if museum and state policy were to change, making the K4s operational again would be my first choice.

Right now there are three PRR design locomotives ready to be restored in the form of two G5s's and a K4s. Oh, then there is a Decapod which would be lovely to see.

Here are two (2) photos that I took during the reunion at Strasburg, last year.

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When David P. Morgan and Philip R. Hastings were doing the In Search of Steam series for Trains Magazine, they visited Tuckahoe NJ on the PRSL in September, 1955, where 460 was working the Tuckahoe-Ocean City shuttle. Morgan wrote, "the fireman - well aware of her history - admitted that though she steamed well, she rode intolerably rough. Certainly she was in no condition to repeat her exploit of almost 30 years ago."

Classic trains reprinted it in "In Search of Steam Volume III: 1955"

Phil Mulligan

I might add the same article includes a photo of K4s 1361 in steam, at Bay Head Jct. on the NY&LB. "all sharp angles and brute power"

I wonder if one of the original builder's plates was ever found after the restoration. I was contacted a couple of years ago by the museum to be looking for one of the plates from the PRR 460 as it disappeared during the restoration. I have found a few plates for different operations over the years. It is sad when this happens but it is not uncommon.

As I recall from posts and threads at the time -- some, in fact, earlier in this thread -- at least some 'mechanical restoration' of the running gear was done as part of the otherwise-cosmetic work. That probably includes bearings, perhaps glands and packing, perhaps some rigging pins and spring packs.

Would still, as noted, involve considerable time and expense to make actually runnable, even at reduced pressure/higher mass flow ... and an E6s is too small to run excursions of sufficient size to make a restoration that has to 'pay for itself' very desirable. You'd [i]certainly[i] not want to do the work on it to suit it for high-speed experimentation (the instrumented-wheelset development cost alone being unpleasantly high, even with college-contest design and proof involved) and the necessary rebalancing and enhanced damping needed to make it safe at high speed, assuming you obtained permission, might even impair easily-reversed modifications to historic fabric.