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Pretty gorgeous stuff. What can you tell us about the conversion of the 1361 to oil lubrication of the crown brasses? What was the rationale for this?As built, PM 1225 had Hennessy lubricators in its driving boxes. Half the 1941 order for these engines had Hennessy's, and half had grease cellars. (And half had Nathan oil pumps, and half Detroits - weird. For those who have never encountered Hennessy lubricators, these are a felt pad in an oil sump, with a little internal plunger pump that lifts oil against the driver journal inside the pad. The pump is powered by a lever against the hub liner, so as the engine oscillates down the track, its lateral motion operates the pumps.)We converted the 1225 to grease cellars, mostly based on the experience of the crew operating Reading 2101 back in the 1970's, who found that rain and wash water would drip off the boiler jacket onto the driver axles, run along the bottoms of the axles past the dust seals into the oil cellars, sink to the bottom of the oil reservoirs, and be pumped into the bearing by the pumps. Grease sounded much more reliable, and so it has proven to be for our operation of the 1225 so far.We later learned that that the bottom edges of the crown brass was finished differently on the oil- vs. grease-lubricated 1200's, but of course there was no way to accomplish this and it hasn't made any evident difference. Did you make any such changes on the 1361 for oil lubrication? Do the new oil cellars have any Hennessy-style pumps?

I have deleted this post because of several messages I have received regarding it.

Our request was refused because LH lead was the way the Pennsy built it. Oh well....[/quote]The "Standard Railroad of the World!"

Just a note to say a very public "thank you" for another piece of quality work from the shop at Strasburg. We can't wait to put 1361 back on her own wheels for the first time in a very long time.Thanks again,

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Thanks, Kelly, for this advice. Oil may very well be better for low-speed operation. In operating PM 1225, we've found that the driver-journal temperature will initially spike, and then fall into the range you described as the grease block warms up and begins to flow. There seems to be an equilibrium between axle temperature and the rate of lubrication.

I believe there was a deleted post here about the possibility of switching the lead of the driving wheels of K4 1361. This technical page below gives a very good reason why not to tinker with the wheel lead.http://home.new.rr.com/trumpetb/loco/cbal.html